


Second Chances

by Serafaerosa



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Clarke Does Too, F/F, Fix-It, Lexa Lives, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:24:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6329038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serafaerosa/pseuds/Serafaerosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa looks at her again, and Clarke knows it’s for the last time. Her chin is trembling, and Clarke feels like a bullet has torn through her own chest. She chokes out the last words, and they come out mangled, broken, strangled, “may we meet again.”</p>
<p>(Spoiler Alert: They do.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She is left staring at the blood on the bed. The doors are open behind her, she can hear Titus walking away, her heart cradled in his arms broken and lifeless.

“Teik sadgeta stot au,” she hears him say, his voice thick and throaty with emotion, “Heda stedaun. May her spirit choose wisely!” Footsteps recede, and she knows she should follow, should run with Murphy while she has the chance, but her feet are rooted in place. Her eyes are glued to the black stain on the bed, stark against the white of her furs, that is all Titus has left behind.

The doors slam shut. Murphy behind her growls in frustration, jiggles the lock, but Clarke is still frozen in place. She can’t look away - she can’t look away because she still sees Lexa stretched across the bed, _black blood leaking past the crease of her mouth, eyes dark with pain, wet with fear. Only the sound of their harsh, labored breathing breaks the still air around them. And Lexa is looking at her, face shadowed by the chance they almost had._

_“In peace, may you leave the shore,” Clarke’s voice breaks over the words, they come out tattered whispers and she prays that Lexa can hear her, “in love, may you find the next.” It’s getting harder to breathe, but Lexa’s eyes are staring into her own and she knows she has to finish, because Lexa is counting on her, because Lexa needs her. “Safe passage on your travels,” Lexa’s eyes unfocus, and it hurts to keep going, because she knows how this will end, “until our final journey on the ground.”_

_Lexa looks at her again, and Clarke knows it’s for the last time. Her chin is trembling, and Clarke feels like a bullet has torn through her own chest. She chokes out the last words, and they come out mangled, broken, strangled, “may we meet again.”_

_A smile almost touches the corners of Lexa’s lips. She knows. She understands the_ almost _that they had. She hears the ‘I love you’ Clarke’s goodbye_ almost _says. And it breaks Clarke’s heart._

_She feels Lexa’s breath, shallow and hot, on her mouth. She can_ almost _feel Lexa’s mouth move with hers, can_ almost _feel the slightest, gentlest murmur in return._

_And then Clarke leans back. She looks at Lexa, but Lexa isn’t looking at her. Her eyes are half-lidded, glassy, vacant. She’s gone, and the warm breath Clarke had tasted on her lips she knows was Lexa’s last._

Murphy jiggles the lock and Lexa’s body is gone. The lungs from Clarke’s chest have disintegrated into nothing, and she’s still trying desperately to hold on to the last kiss Lexa breathed onto her lips but with nothing to hold it, it’s already gone too. Lexa was _here_ , so real, so warm, and now all that is left is just black, staining once pristine white furs and choking in a loss that’s become all too familiar.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The cold seeps in past the blood-crusted fabric of her shirt. It sinks into her skin, meets the ice shuddering through her veins, and Clarke huddles in on herself against it. But when the cold is coming from inside and the only thing that could possibly bring warmth back into her bones is gone, it’s pointless. An act of instinct, of a mindless drive to survive.

Lexa’s last words to her echo in her ears. They ricochet through the muddled fog of her brain, spike fresh pain through her chest. The rough stone ledge she sits on digs uncomfortably into her skin, and her neck aches from the way it is twisted, head rested on her arms and tilted to stare out the window at the square in which they build Lexa’s funeral pyre.

“Clearly a lot’s happened while I was gone,” Murphy comments from somewhere deeper in the room. His voice grates on Clarke’s nerves. He sounds too uncaring, too casual, like they hadn’t just witnessed the end of the world and, regrettably, survived it. “Care to fill me in, Princess?”

Clarke ignores him. He’s been trying to pull her into one conversation or another all night, checking her pulse with words too carefully constructed to sound harsh and bitter and unaffected to be anything but. All night, they have been forgotten, locked in the room Lexa still haunts with memories too recent and too painful to bear. Clarke knows they are merely constructs of her overwhelmed and overburdened mind, but she thinks she must be a masochist because Lexa’s last smile and Lexa’s last kiss play out in front of her all over again.

No. Not quite playing out. They’re not quite memories. They’re something… _more._

Clarke toys with the rough crust of dried blood caked along the seam of her pants idly. She thinks she should have crossed a threshold by now, some imaginary line in the sand. After her dad, after Wells, after Finn, she should be numb to the pain of losing the people she loves, of watching them die before her eyes, knowing that they are gone because of her. All she should feel now is empty, and it should be a relief.

Only, she’s not numb. Only, there’s a spiking agony breaking her heart in two, and it’s so intense it feels like she’s having a heart attack that just won’t kill her. Only, she wishes she could be so numb, because this hurt has turned her inside out and her heart into a mine-riddled battlefield and by the time the war is done it will be a black hole just sucking down every ounce of strength and energy she possesses until there is nothing left but the ghost of who she once was.

_Lexa’s arm clasped with hers is warm, solid, strong. Clarke stares into the eyes of the woman she loves, hating that it’s goodbye - again - and wishing she cared little enough about everyone else to disappoint Octavia, to forsake her people, to take care of herself for a change. But her people are waiting for her, have been waiting for her for months, and Clarke has already disappointed them enough._

_She sucks in a shallow breath, tastes the sharp, clean scent of the soap Lexa uses in her hair in the very back of her throat. A hard, thick lump rises there as she fights against the surge of memories and emotions it brings. There’s the old, hollow sadness staining Lexa’s expressive eyes, back again after weeks of being gone, after Clarke had forgotten that it had ever existed. And she can’t stop herself from leaning in, the ache in her chest to make that pain in Lexa’s eyes disappear so intense she can’t breathe around it. She can’t stop herself from reaching up to grip the back of Lexa’s head, can’t stop herself from pressing in and stealing Lexa’s lips in a long kiss…_

_It feels like dying when the kiss breaks, and she sees hot salt glide down the soft plane of Lexa’s cheek. It feels like agony, like a Lexa-shaped brand being burned into her soul, the way Lexa sobs into her lips, the way she shakes in her arms, the way she surrenders instantly, completely._

_Clarke knows she’s loved the Commander for a long time. She knows that her pain when Lexa dies in a little over an hour will be inescapable. She also knows that making love to Lexa will only deepen the imprint the Commander has made in her heart, will only grow a kind of hope that is fragile and tenuous, but that will break her when it is ultimately eradicated by Lexa’s death. She struggles to change this moment, battles against the flutter in her stomach, against the warmth flooding between her legs, against the swell of her heart and the scream of bliss that swallows every shred of oxygen in her lungs and leaves her gasping._

She knows it’s not a memory because in her memory, she hadn’t feared Lexa’s death. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that the strong, resilient, powerful woman standing opposite from her could possibly die. Not like this. It’s not a memory she sees, feels, hears, as if it’s happening to her at that very moment.

Perhaps she’s just gone mad. Finally insane after all the pain this life has dealt her.

Murphy is staring at her. Clarke can feel his dark gaze boring into the top of her head as surely as she can feel the trickle of salt dripping across the bridge of her nose and the wide-open, hollow, haunted _emptiness_ that is life without Lexa.

“What?” Clarke barks roughly. All she wants is to be allowed to grieve in peace. She wants to be left alone with these memories that are not memories, with these short moments of insanity that, though excruciating, bring her back to a time when Lexa still existed.

“Where are you?” Murphy asks, his voice unusually gentle. It’s so uncharacteristic, Clarke looks up to meet his stare, and finds that his brows are knitted into a tangled line and his mouth is twisted into a worried frown. His face is pale, his left eye swollen nearly shut, and despite having been clearly tortured - by Grounders, again - he has the human decency to care about someone other than himself. He still has the circumspection to know that not all grounders are the same, to accept easily and immediately that she cared about Lexa… and to be sensitive to it.

She wonders when he and Bellamy switched bodies.

Clarke sighs, swipes at the tears staining her cheeks and rubs at her arms in a futile attempt to bring a little bit of warmth back into them. “Not where,” she croaks back, “when.”

Murphy only nods, as if he understands, and finally looks away. He leans against the edge of the window, head tilted up to rest against the stone, and settles in, one foot propped up on the wide window-sill, his arm balanced across his knee. He says nothing else, and Clarke thinks that maybe he does understand. She thinks that maybe, if she knew something about Murphy other than the fact that he’s a bit of an asshole, it might not be so shocking.

_It is a shock when Lexa kneels in front of her on both knees, in the same spot Clarke had knelt to her a mere few hours ago. It is a shock when Lexa stares up at her solemnly, and the words that pour out of her wind around Clarke like smoke, ethereal and untouchable, but real nonetheless._

_“I swear fealty to you, Klark kom Skaikru,” Lexa’s voice is strong and steady, if quiet, “I vow to treat your needs as my own,” not so steady, Clarke realizes, as she hears the slightest tremor shake her words, “and your people as my people.”_

_Of all the shocking things that had happened in that day alone, this easily outmatches the rest. Lexa looks up at her, vulnerable in more ways than one, green eyes glittering dark in the candle-light. And Clarke thinks she hears more in Lexa’s vow than was said out loud. She thinks this is personal, that it runs deeper than alliances and politics. She thinks she sees the same glimmer in Lexa’s stare, the same openness in her expression as those she’d worn so plainly in Clarke’s room, staring at each other over the gleaming edge of a knife._

_And seeing Lexa on her knees chips at something wedged deep in Clarke’s heart. She offers the Commander her hand to help her up, uncomfortable now to be the one standing while Lexa kneels prostrate before her. The way Lexa looks at it, the way she slides her fingers into Clarke’s palm, slowly and gingerly, as if afraid it might be snatched away, the way she allows Clarke to help her up…_

_This is real. This is standing in the Commander’s tent three months ago, staring at Lexa staring at her, mouth still tingling in the explosive aftermath of their stolen kiss. It’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating. Was this the point, Clarke wonders, that sealed Lexa’s fate? Could it have been this stolen handful of moments, under pale moonlight and swathed in the flickering orange glow of the army of candles ranged around the room, that decided Lexa’s death not a week later by the hand of her most trusted advisor?_

_‘No,’_ the voice is neither Clarke’s, nor Lexa’s, though she feels it echo in the vast emptiness of her chest. She doesn’t give it much thought. She doesn’t give anything much thought, except to wonder when she will see Lexa again, which memory her broken mind will make her relive, with the knowledge of how all of it ends. It is a sweet, exquisite kind of torture, to experience with such utter clarity, with every sense finely tuned, the moments she shared with the woman she wishes she stopped denying she loves sooner.

“Clarke,” Murphy’s soft call catches Clarke’s attention. He stands beside the cracked door of her room, and the door is wedged slightly open. Beyond, Clarke can see the dark furs and leathers of Lexa’s guard - _‘No - not Lexa’s guard anymore’_ \- and the pale bald dome of Titus’s head. “He’s letting us go.”

Clarke scrapes the tears from her eyes. She doesn’t want to go. She doesn’t want to leave behind the room in which Lexa was last still breathing, still alive, still _real_. It feels too much like leaving this room, leaving the tower and leaving Polis, is leaving Lexa, and what’s left of her heart rebels.

“I promised Lexa I would keep you safe, Clarke,” Titus steps through the narrow gap in the door, hands clasped in front of him the way they always are. “The only way to keep that promise is to send you home, to your people.”

Hearing him say her name _hurts._ It chafes against her heart, burns under her skin, sears through her chest, because _he pulled the trigger_ and _Lexa is dead because of it._ Clarke’s hands clench on either side of her, fingers fisting through blood-caked fabric until the dull pain of her nails digging into her palms distracts her from the rest. Murphy is watching her, concern evident in the lines across his battered face.

It is a strange thing to experience her body moving without her heart or mind agreeing to it. It’s as if strings pull her to obey, to gather her pack at the foot of her still blood-stained bed and settle the strap over her shoulder. It’s disorienting. But Clarke sees and feels herself moving through space, guided by some will other than her own, to find an escort of warriors outside the door.

The walk from the top of the Polis tower to the bottom comes to her in flashes, as if she is merely watching a badly preserved vid on the Ark before it crashed - choppy and incoherent. The elevator. The ground floor. People gathered at the door. A body-shaped sheet just the right size and shape as Lexa lying still on a table, surrounded by candles. Aden, staring at them as they troop past. It gets more and more garbled as they go along. Climbing atop her horse, _the one she rode to Arkadia with Lexa beside her and Queen Nia in a box behind them both_. The gates of Polis. The echo of sunset dim against the skyline, diluted and graying, as if in mourning. As if this world is too old, too tired. As if it has seen too many of its beloved die.

_Her hands are shaking. They’d been steady only seconds before, but now, they’re quaking in defiance. Lexa doesn’t move away, doesn’t retaliate like Clarke knows she can. The edge of the knife bites into Lexa’s long, bare neck, but Lexa only holds still, only stares back at her, lips parted in silent, sad surprise. Between the two of them, Lexa is the more steady, the more calm, the more still. And it terrifies her._

_Her stomach is in knots and her lungs aren’t working properly. Clarke’s heart is stammering in her chest, staggering under the weight of her fear and anger and hurt and something else that she can’t dare to label. Because there are no synonyms for the word ‘hurt’ that can come close to capturing how painful it would be to admit to that feeling._

_She tightens her grip over the knife’s handle. A soft breath breaks from Lexa’s lips in the shape of ‘I’m sorry’, and their faces are so close Clarke can feel its warmth wash over her mouth and chin. Clarke’s throat betrays her, cracks under the pressure of the sob tightening it, under the aching lump corking it. Tears sting her eyes, she can feel them heavy on her eyelids, and she can no longer contain the twist in her lips or the tremble of her chin._

_She pulls back the knife and pushes Lexa away, turning on her heel at once because she can’t fucking stand the way Lexa is staring at her. She can’t do it, can’t kill her. Because despite how much anger, how much betrayal, how much fear and that prickling, insistent pain she feels, she can’t force herself to hate Lexa. She just can’t stand to look into that passive face, with those expressive eyes so full of regret and compassion and a complete, genuine forgiveness Clarke knows she does not deserve._

_The knife clatters to the floor, the sound of steel against stone jarring and loud, but not loud enough to drown out the jagged clamor of Clarke’s thoughts._

_“I never meant to turn you into this,” Lexa’s voice is still soft, breathy, almost as if Lexa is talking to herself out loud. Clarke wishes she could peel herself out of her skin, because ‘_ this’ _is the skin of the monster that has grown over her like moss on a stone. ‘_ This _’ is an overgrowth of steel around her raw, mangled heart and she’s tired of wearing it. She’s so tired… she wants to shed the title of Wanheda like a snake sheds its skin, and the assassination of the woman that had so easily stolen her heart before the mountain, and will so easily steal her heart again in the week to come, will only add layers of that title onto her shoulders. She is tired enough of losing the people she loves without losing another before being allowed to accept and express her feelings first. It is too much already that, when Lexa dies in a little over a week, it will be Clarke’s fault._

She doesn’t remember riding through the night, and doesn’t remember the dawn, but she is saddle sore when she looks around next. The soft morning is already upon them, sweet and crisp and light, as if it doesn’t know or doesn’t care that it should be gray in mourning. Murphy is studying her from where he sits on his own pony, both hands on the pommel and his seat a little awkward and uncomfortable, like he wants to get out of the saddle and rest but can’t bring himself to show that weakness. Clarke doesn’t bother to look at the armed warriors guiding them through the trees toward Arkadia. She just closes her eyes and slumps in the saddle, head pounding in her hands. A hot kind of pain is slicing through her skull and her eyes are burning and she feels so weary.

Her last _flashback_ \- though she’s not sure that’s quite the right word for what she’s experiencing - comes after they’ve arrived in the safety of Arkadia’s fence. Or - relative safety. Bellamy stares at her distrustfully as she rides through the gate with Murphy, and the hostile glares of her own people haunt her. It seems as if they see her as the enemy now, and she catches more than a few whispers behind her back, wondering if she needs to be locked away with the ‘others’ now. Even Raven looks at her askance. She knows the expression on Jaha’s face should worry her, but she’s too tired and sore and sad to care.

But Harper, Miller, Kane and her mom are here too, looking at her with concern rather than suspicion. Her mother’s arms encircle her, and the comfort Clarke finds in them is immense, but the storm raging in her chest only abates a little. She thinks she might have been safer in Polis, and she discovers later that night, she’s not wrong.

She’s almost asleep when she hears a scuffle at the door. Her mother’s arms are around her, the soft sound of Abby’s slow, even breathing soothing in the darkness. Kane’s rumpled form is slumped in a chair in the opposite corner of the room and Clarke sees him sit up suddenly at the scrape of something metal and heavy. Clarke sits up in the cot, and her mother starts awake too, bleary eyed and mumbling half-formed questions.

A sinister, yellow light slices through as the door slides open with a creak. Kane is on his feet, and Clarke scrambles to follow. Her heart is in her throat, and her head is screaming in pain, but she doesn’t think it’s from the noise. Shadows jump beneath the light, and it blinds her momentarily, before she sees that the shadows belong to a handful of people with murder in the faces, a strange, half-vacant, half-distracted look in their eyes. She recognizes them past the sharpening buzz cutting through her skull. Jaha and Jackson stand out among the rest.

It plays out like an old horror movie. Her mom reaching across her body protectively, Kane darting between them and the crowd advancing determinedly toward them, the first fist flying. It’s chaos. All Clarke hears is a sharp whine ricocheting between her ears, all she feels is a strange tug at the back of her neck, even as hands grab at her and a massive hammer flies in slow-motion to hit her right between the eyes… -

-… _The sound of footsteps and shoving recede from behind her. Lexa is looking down at her again, expression thoughtful, but carefully constructed not to reveal anything else._

_“What of Wanheda -?” Titus hasn’t the time to fully express his question before Lexa throws her hands dismissively in the air and growls, “Leave us!”_

_Her eyes hold fast to Lexa’s while the room empties out. Clarke thinks either Titus or Indra must have turned to challenge her order on their way past her and out the door, because Lexa looks up, lips tight with the barest rumor of a snarl, and glares._

_“You heard me,” Lexa’s voice is steel, cold and hard. And then, as footfalls recede once again, “Sis em au na gyon op.”_

_Clarke twists to see two of Lexa’s guard approach to roughly pull her to her feet, and now she’s standing face to face, at eye level, with the woman who left her and her people for dead at the foot of Mount Weather. Clarke remembers the fury she felt twisting in her gut at this meeting. She remembers the hatred, rising like bile in her throat, the jagged, intense disgust crawling under her skin. It’s more intense now, but Clarke is more aware now than she was then that this rage and hatred and disgust are self-directed._

_She watches as the hard veneer of the Commander falls away from Lexa’s face. Lexa’s fingers are gentle when she reaches up to peel away the gag from Clarke’s mouth. “I’m sorry,” Lexa’s voice is softer now, gentler, “but it had to be this way.” It’s a relief to be able to close her mouth. Clarke is keenly aware of the slackening of her skin around her lips, of the rage boiling over in her chest and the thick taste of her own spit in her mouth. She gathers it, rolls it with her tongue, unfazed by the taste of dirty cotton that rolls with it._

_“I had to ensure Wanheda didn’t fall into the hands of the Ice Queen,” Lexa’s words are so gentle, and this time, Clarke can hear the true meaning behind them._

_“War is brewing, Clarke.”_

_The spit in Clarke’s mouth is a thick, frothy glob._

_“I need you.”_

_There is a sharp tug at the back of Clarke’s neck, and she flinches inwardly as a mouthful of spit flies into Lexa’s face. Color seems to be bleeding into the scene and time seems to skid for a moment, as if her brain is catching up. Hands collide with Clarke’s arms, and there’s a beat, a moment,_ where Clarke can feel her heart shuddering in place and the persistent, agonizing scream ricochets through her head _. She can hear herself screaming profanities at Lexa,_ but the white noise that’s been slowly getting louder since Lexa’s death reaches a near deafening volume and -

_Save her._

_They’re dragging her out -_ she’s still screaming, because the white noise buzzing between her ears is splitting her skull open, - _her feet catch against the stone and Lexa’s throne room, and Lexa, fall out of view, -_

_Save her!_

Clarke is hyper-aware of the bad taste in her mouth, of hands clamped hard and tight and painful over her arms, and the words ‘ _Save her!’_ Tear through her brain like gunfire. Her throat is sore, her body aches, a thick layer of grime crawls over her skin and though Lexa is gone from her sight the memory keeps replaying which is strange, because what’s the point in reliving these memories if Lexa is not standing in front of her, within arm’s reach?

She stops screaming when the guards manage to drag her into her familiar room at the top of the tower in Polis. She drops to her ass on the rough flagstone floor, staring as the guards pull the doors shut heavily and she’s left alone. She’s left alone, and when Clarke stumbles to her knees, then her feet, she realizes something is different.

She’s in the driver’s seat. She’s in control. She’s not reliving the memory… Clarke lifts her hand, bunches her fingers into a fist, stares out across the room at the window and the now familiar scenery outside it and scrubs her hands through her tangled, filthy hair violently. She’s not reliving the memory… she’s somehow back in Polis. And somehow, Lexa is alive.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The stone under Clarke’s fingertips is rough and cool. The chilly morning breeze that blows through the window and ruffles her filthy hair brings with it the warm smell of earth, the bright scent of sky, and the old, familiar, faint notes of Polis’s marketplace far below. All of it feels so real. And the way her entire body aches, as if it had only been yesterday that Roan dragged her kicking and screaming to Polis tower, convinces her that this, all of this, is real too. 

She doesn’t know how. None of this makes sense. And Clarke doesn’t know what to make of it. She catalogs every moment since Lexa’s death carefully, trying to find a seam or some moment that might make her believe that one memory or another is false or a dream, but aside from the relapsed time the night before, she can’t.

She remembers falling apart in her mother’s arms. She remembers the way Abby held her, thin arms tight and strong around her shoulders, lips wet with tears of her own in Clarke’s hair. Her mother hadn’t known, couldn’t have known, about the way Clarke felt about Lexa, but it hardly seemed to matter. Clarke remembers feeling grateful for it, grateful for her mother’s love, even if it wasn’t Lexa’s.

She remembers crying herself to sleep. Her mother had guided her to the bed and lain down with her, arms immovable from where they wrapped around Clarke’s shoulders. She remembers the quiet stillness of the night, the sounds of both Abby’s and Kane’s measured breathing when she woke to moonlight spilling cool and silver across her face.

She thinks she remembers a voice, an unfamiliar one, from inside her own head. It had sounded cracked and tired… sad. Almost like it mourned Lexa’s loss with her, and Clarke supposed it probably did if it was coming from somewhere inside herself. It had felt almost like a soothing caress, like generations of echoes sang with it, and had whispered insistently that they had to _save her_. Clarke knew without having to wonder that the ‘her’ that voice referred to was Lexa. Even if Lexa was already lost.

She remembers the scraping at the door, and the fuzziness that ensued. She remembers the furious, insane eyes of people she’d once considered friends, and she remembers what must have been her own death, except…

Footsteps ring behind her like they had weeks ago when this happened the first time, and Clarke realizes she doesn’t _care_. She doesn’t care _how_ this is real. All she cares is that the person knocking at her door is _Lexa_ , alive again. She’s terrified that when she turns around, the person she aches to see won’t be there. That it will be Titus instead, or else one of the guards, come to escort her from Polis because the grounders have decided to declare war after all in the wake of Lexa’s death.

“Clarke.”

Clarke’s stomach drops. It’s _her_ voice. But the fear that when she turns around it won’t be _her_ is pervasive, and shivers through her violently. Slowly, with her heart in her throat, she turns.

“We need to talk,” Lexa is staring at her expectantly. Her expression is stoic, void of all emotion, but the light in her eyes is anxious, worried. Clarke’s knees feel like they might give out from under her, and a nervous, tentative kind of euphoria washes over her. She takes a cautious, stumbling step toward Lexa, and Lexa stares at her a little warily.

“Clarke?” Lexa’s voice drops into something soft, cautious, _gentle_ , and Clarke’s chest tightens to a painful point. Lexa should be dead, but somehow, she’s standing right in front of her, alive, breathing, calling her name. The need to reach out, to touch her, to feel Lexa solid and warm in her arms, becomes overwhelming. Clarke staggers across the room, eyes blurring with tears so much she can barely see where she’s going, only manages to suck in a single harsh, rasping breath as her arms close around Lexa’s shoulders.

The air in Clarke’s lungs disintegrates into nothing. She feels the way Lexa tenses, stiffens in shock. She feels the hot explosion of breath against the back of her neck that Lexa expels in confusion. She buries her face in the warm curtain of Lexa’s hair, breathes her in as best she can around the tight knot in her chest and digs her fingers in between the creases of Lexa’s armor, clinging like she will never let go. The space between Lexa’s jaw and shoulder grows wet and sticky instantly with the tears pouring down Clarke’s cheeks, and Clarke knows she’s shaking violently, knows she’s put her weakness fully on display and she doesn’t care.

And then Lexa melts a little into her. Relief burns in the floors of Clarke’s lungs. Lexa’s arms rise around her, press into her shoulder blades, hold her gently. If this is a dream, if this is insanity, Clarke never wants to wake up, never wants to be sane. Lexa is here, holding her, breathing and  _alive_ , and Clarke’s previously silent tears erupt into sobs that quake in the marrow of her bones. Her knees give out. Lexa’s arms around her tighten to hold her up, hold her in place, and she feels a slightly damp breath ruffling her hair, but she can’t hear the words Lexa is murmuring to her past the thunderous roaring in her ears. Lexa is here. Lexa is alive in her arms. _Lexa is holding her_ and Clarke simply falls apart.

For a long time, it’s all Clarke is capable of. Lexa had died in her arms, and the relief of holding her again, of feeling Lexa’s strength wrap around her, is too overwhelming. The thoughts in Clarke’s head are too tangled to pick apart. Her heart is hammering inside her chest, as if trying to make up for all the lost time it spent still while Lexa was dead. Her lungs can’t hold in oxygen, it keeps stuttering right back out again past the hard, painful knot lodged in her throat and she knows she’s trembling, because all the strength in her legs has given out, lent itself to her arms so she can keep Lexa held fast within them.

And Lexa only holds her up and murmurs words Clarke can’t hear past her own thundering heartbeat crashing in her ears. She threads her fingers through Clarke’s tangled hair. Clarke can feel when Lexa’s shock and confusion become worry in the quickening pulse in Lexa’s throat against her lips, in the dig of nails into her spine and the nape of her neck. It’s more proof that Lexa is alive, and Clarke crumbles under the weight of the relief it brings her.

Eventually though, Lexa’s anxious murmurs become more insistent, become louder, and Lexa gently disentangles herself from Clarke’s vise-like embrace.

“Clarke?”

They’ve moved to the couch in the middle of the room. Clarke doesn’t remember her feet moving, but she’s sitting down now. Her knees press against Lexa’s, reminding her that, even though Lexa’s arms have retreated from around her, Lexa is here and alive. Clarke chokes down a sob, leans in because she’s not ready yet to let Lexa go. Warm, strong fingers wind through Clarke’s hair again, but Lexa gently pushes her back and slumps to look into Clarke’s face.

“Clarke? What happened? Talk to me.”

The sound of Lexa’s voice makes Clarke’s insides feel soft, thin, and though she can’t read Lexa’s expression past the tears blurring her vision, she can hear the concern clearly in every hushed, insistent word Lexa speaks.

“You died,” Clarke stutters, still leaning into Lexa because she can’t let go, “you were dead, you died.” She swipes the tears from her face with one hand while the fingers of the other dig hard into the grooves between Lexa’s pauldron and shoulder. She sees confusion flicker across Lexa’s features, sees Lexa hesitate like she’s been taken completely off-guard and has no ready response.

“I’m not dead, Clarke,” Lexa finally says, and the way her eyes search Clarke’s brings her to the realization that Lexa is not hesitant because of what Clarke said, but because it’s Clarke’s explanation for her behavior. Clarke clings harder, pulls herself closer, shudders into Lexa’s shoulder, even though she knows she should let go.

_Save her._

“You were dead,” Clarke insists, a little more softly this time. “You were shot, with a bullet meant for me. You died,” she chokes on the word, slides her arm around Lexa’s waist and lets out a shuddering sigh to feel Lexa’s arm fold over it. “You died on my bed. Titus turned you over, cut your neck open and pulled a chip - the Commander’s Spirit - out of you.” Clarke’s voice softens to a ragged whisper, and she buries her face in Lexa’s throat. The memories that flash through her head stab at her insides. The air feels too thick and heavy, but Lexa’s scent in her nose and on her tongue makes it easier to breathe. Lexa’s body is stiff and tense against hers, but an arm hesitantly rises and a hand rests lightly on the small of Clarke’s back and the loose hold is enough to help Clarke breathe a little.

“It was a dream, Clarke,” Lexa murmurs into Clarke’s hair, and her voice sounds oddly strained, “it must have been. I would not die so easily.”

“But you did!” It comes out choked, and Clarke pulls back just enough to look Lexa in the eye. Lexa’s brows are knit into a tight frown, her expression somewhere between confusion and disbelief. “I tried to help you,” Clarke’s words are strangled, but she forces them out anyway, “but I had nothing to stop the bleeding, nothing to pull the bullet out, and no one came - Titus just stood there -,” her throat closes, and the salt in her eyes sting so that she has to squeeze them shut. Her heart feels like it’s being wrung out. She doesn’t want to remember, it would be better just to pretend like it never happened, to fall into Lexa’s arms and love her now, while she has the chance…

_Save her!_

“Clarke…” Lexa’s voice shakes Clarke from her grief a little, and her voice is so soft Clarke has to strain to hear it, “the Commander’s Spirit, _my_ spirit… what did it look like?”

It’s an odd question. Clarke swipes the tears from her eyes again, though she knows it’s futile, and rubs at her temples to try to scrape the fuzziness from her brain. Lexa is staring at her, face still tense and her expression intensely focused. “Like a chip,” Clarke hiccups past the lump in her throat, “with an infinity symbol in it, and... _wires_ like it hooked into your brain -,” she can’t finish. She squeezes her eyes shut again, trying to erase the image from her own brain, but it won’t go away. It imprints instead into the backs of her eyelids and she can’t get away.

Lexa’s fingertips brush along her arms, soothing and gentle. “And did Titus say anything when he pulled it out?”

She doesn’t want to remember. She doesn’t want to think about it, think about anything.

“Something in Latin,” she whispers instead, hoarsely, “something like ‘qui a un quale’, I don’t know.”

“Clarke,” the way Lexa says her name has Clarke finally opening her eyes and looking up, and the light in Lexa’s eyes is soft and troubled, “I need you to start from the beginning. Please.”

She doesn’t want to. But Lexa’s hand is on her hip, and another has found a place to rest on her knee, and Lexa’s scent is still around her, warm and breathing and alive, and Clarke knows she has to. She’s probably said too much, but maybe it’s enough to _save her_ and Clarke will revisit those memories a thousand times if it means keeping Lexa alive. So she swallows the fear and the pain, sucks in a ragged breath, and forces the words from her mouth.

  
  


* * *

  
  


It’s late by the time Lexa leaves Clarke’s room. She hopes Clarke will eventually find sleep, but it seems unlikely. Clarke had calmed by the end of her story, but it’s the kind of troubled calm that comes with an overburdened mind, overwhelmed with too many questions and not enough answers.

Lexa feels it too. Clarke’s story is unlikely, but the details are too close to the truth to dismiss. Clarke could not possibly know the things she knows, the Commander’s Spirit is a secret too well guarded for anyone outside the Fleimkepa and the Heda herself to know such things. There is no way Clarke could have come into this kind of knowledge, whether on her own or with help.

And Lexa knows Clarke hasn’t told her the whole story yet.

“You were in there a long time, Heda,” Titus’s familiar voice calls to her from the depths of her throne room. Lexa looks up to see him standing beside her chair, hands clasped before him and the dome of his bald, tattooed head flickering in the candle-light.

“I was in there for as long as was necessary,” Lexa answers, not hesitating as she approaches him. The idea that Titus could be the one to kill her is absurd, the mere fantasy that he will do so with a Skaikru weapon is laughable. But she watches him more closely as she approaches, focuses on the guarded, displeased light in his eyes. He loves her, like a father would his daughter, and Lexa does not doubt that. But Lexa is not willing to dismiss Clarke’s story solely on that knowledge alone.

“What of Wanheda?” Titus asks, his voice softening as Lexa approaches, “What will you do with her, now that she is here?”

“Nothing.” Titus’s question prickles at the short hairs on the back of Lexa’s neck. “I brought her here to keep her safe. She will be free to return to her people when they arrive for the summit in a week.”

A week might be too long. If what Clarke has told her is true, then time may be of the essence. Titus looks at her, brows knit into a disapproving frown. But he only dips his head in a slight bow and the conversation is over. Her natblidas enter the throne for their mid-afternoon lesson, and Titus disappears.


	3. Chapter 3

Somehow, she sleeps. Not on the bed, because although Lexa’s blood no longer stains it - _or hasn’t stained it yet_ \- Clarke can’t bear to even look at it.

She sleeps on the couch. It’s not the most comfortable of resting places, but it’s better than sleeping where Lexa has, or will have, drawn her last breath.

_The last gunshot cracks - and Clarke knows it’s the last gunshot because the whole world stops for a moment. In front of her, staggering through the open door of her bedroom, Lexa stands wide-eyed and shocked. Clarke prays that time doesn’t start again, because if it starts again, Lexa will fall, and Lexa will bleed, and if Lexa dies Clarke doesn’t want time to keep marching on._

_Then Lexa turns her head and looks at her. Clarke has never seen her eyes so wide before, has never seen her lips form that little circle, and the stunned, frightened expression that paints Lexa’s face makes her wish she never had. Then time catches up and Lexa falls. Clarke scrambles forward to catch her in her arms, to hold her. Lexa is gasping, lines of pain slip across her once smooth, young features and make her look old and Clarke has never wished so hard for time to run backward, just a few moments, just enough to make Lexa whole and healthy again._

_Clarke is on her knees, holding Lexa in her arms. The ground is soft and damp under her, the moon is gone, leaving only a heavy blanketing darkness that pushes into her skin and fills her with a frost that feels… empty. Lexa stares up at her, green eyes bright and glowing like candles. Her hand around Clarke’s bicep is already stiff and cold. Clarke’s breath clouds in the air between their faces, but Lexa’s does not. Clarke can’t feel the warmth of it on her lips as she leans down to kiss her one last time. Lexa’s lips don’t move, but Clarke hears her voice resonate between her ears, more thought than sound, “may we meet again.”_

Clarke wakes with a start, hands and face clammy, her heart racing in her chest. She’s struggling to breathe, but her lungs burn like she’s been sucking in air and refusing to let it go. She can’t feel her feet, and she’s trembling so badly that, for a moment, she can’t even push herself to sit up.

It’s just a dream.

_Please God, let it be just a dream._

Clarke rubs at the tense muscles along her neck and shoulders and pushes herself up onto her elbows. She gulps breath after breath, and for a moment, the air refuses to stick in her chest. The image of Lexa lying across her lap, body broken and black blood glittering in the suffocating darkness, persists behind her eyelids. But she’s not in the woods in the middle of the night… there is a roof over her head, and golden sunlight is spilling warm across her face. The arch of her old bed frame in Polis is just at the corner of her field of vision, and she’s not lying on damp earth and dead leaves, but on something dry and a little rough. She’s in her room, in Polis, and Clarke scrambles to sit up to check if there are stains of blood on the furs of her bed, but they’re pristine and untouched.

Lexa is not dead. Not yet.

Clarke shakes her head in an attempt to clear it, to brush away the cobwebs of her dream, of a future she remembers but has yet to happen. Lexa is not dead, she is alive. Lexa came to visit her just yesterday, held her while Clarke cried in her arms, reassured her…

_Save her!_

It’s not Lexa’s voice in her head, but Clarke has never felt so relieved to hear it. In it, she hears the promise that Lexa still lives, that there’s still a _her_ to save. There’s still time. Not a lot, but some.

Clarke drops her head into her hands. Her breathing is slowing, the ragged gasps evening out. The air feels a little easier to draw in and expel now, and her heart-rate slows to a more normal rhythm too. When Clarke closes her eyes, she summons instead the memories of Lexa holding her while she cried. She pretends she can still feel Lexa’s arms around her, Lexa’s breath against the back of her neck, Lexa’s eyes, glittering in confusion and concern while Clarke told her everything. _Almost_ everything. It brings a small, painful smile to her lips to recall the baffled, tentative expression of hope, of bliss, that had visited Lexa’s face more than once while Clarke clung to her. Because Lexa loves her, and Lexa doesn’t know yet that Clarke loves her too.

But she sobers up immediately. She can’t let what happened before happen again. She won’t let Lexa die. And Lexa died because Clarke stayed. She died for turning the Grounders’ very culture heels over head for the loyalty she swore to Clarke. Lexa died for _loving_ her. So Clarke won’t let what happened before happen again, even if it means staying away from the woman she loves. Even if it means pretending to hate Lexa for the rest of her life.

It makes Clarke’s heart ache for a different reason, and she buries her head into the cradle of her arms to stifle the tired sob that tries to push past her lips. She hates that she can’t go back to denying how she feels about Lexa. She’s already torn down the bars around her heart and bared her soul to the Commander, and even if Lexa does not remember it, Clarke can recall with vivid clarity the relief it brought her. She remembers what it felt like to offer everything to Lexa… and what it felt like for that everything to be treasured, reciprocated, held close and held gently like she was holy and beautiful. The work it will take to rebuild those walls, to re-cage her heart, to protect herself and to protect the woman she loves… it weighs heavy on Clarke’s soul. She’s afraid she can’t do it, because the heart she wants to protect doesn’t belong to her anymore. It sits beside Lexa’s, beating in Lexa’s chest, Lexa’s to have and to hold whether she knows it or not.

But now she has a second chance to keep Lexa alive, to keep both their hearts beating, to keep both their hearts from breaking. Clarke swipes the tears from her eyes and sucks in a fortifying breath. She has to leave. Not just to protect them both, but also because she still has time to change the course of the future in which Lexa dies. She still has time to keep her people from starting a war. She still has time to save Farm Station from the bomb in Mount Weather and she can’t sit idly by, simply drinking in Lexa’s presence and Lexa’s life and letting the world crumble into ruin around her again.

_Save her!_

Whoever that voice is, wherever it’s coming from, Clarke is listening. She doesn’t have much to pack, she doesn’t have anything at all. So with a last, lingering look around her room, Clarke makes for the door, shoulders set, heart heavy, face creased in determination.

 

 

* * *

  
  


She leaves her natblidas with Daria, their primary combat mentor, feeling altogether light and free. She has a little spare time now, enough to visit Clarke in her room, and can’t quiet the excitement that bleeds into her muscles. She had never expected in a million years to be greeted by Clarke the way she had the day before, and though her heart had ached to see the pain and the fear in Clarke’s eyes then, her soul soars for the way Clarke clung to her, for the way Clarke held her, like she never wanted to let go.

It had been a sweet feeling, holding Clarke in her arms, and Lexa is eager to repeat the experience. But she knows that it’s not where her focus has to lie. The story Clarke told her the night before had been strange, almost fantastical, but Lexa knows she’d be a fool to ignore it. Clarke would not lie to her, and Clarke is not the type to mistake bad dreams for reality, or the type to indulge in psychoactive drugs. As ridiculous as her story sounds, it must have some merit, and Lexa knows her first orders of business must be to understand how Clarke came upon this information, or upon this experience, and then to plan a way to avoid such a fate.

Still, she can’t help being a little punch drunk on the way it felt to have Clarke’s body pressed against her, and the warmth of Clarke’s lips against her throat. The potential that she might experience that same warmth and love while she and Clarke talk has a small smile tugging insistently at the corner of Lexa’s lip as she rounds the bend toward Clarke’s room.

But there is commotion. Lexa’s guards are standing solidly in front of Clarke’s door and there’s yelling, and Lexa’s heart flips and speeds up in panic. The guards had strict orders not to bother Wanheda, and they had strict orders not to allow anyone through those doors but Lexa. The terror that something has happened, that her guards disobeyed her or else someone else has snuck in to harm Clarke races through Lexa’s imagination with brutal clarity. She rushes down, elbows past her guards, and sees Clarke, upper lip peeled back in a snarl and her face red with fury.

“Are you holding me prisoner?!” Clarke’s first greeting to Lexa is a snap, and Lexa feels her heart sink. She’d so foolishly hoped that Clarke would greet her again like she had the day before. So she straightens her back, clears the panic from her throat and pushes her guards back behind her. They shrink away without a word.

“This is for your protection, Clarke,” Lexa is pleased to hear her voice sound so strong, so firm, because her insides feel like they’re crumbling and her confused heart feels like it’s breaking.

“I don’t need your protection, Commander,” Clarke spits back. There’s a slight softening around her eyes, and her voice is not nearly as venomous as Lexa has heard it before, but Lexa is too afraid she’s imagining things. “What I need is to get back to my people. I need to leave.”

She’s not sure what has happened between the day before and right now, but something has changed. Just like something had changed between the day before and the day Clarke arrived in Polis. And Lexa has a strong suspicion it has everything to do with the story Clarke told her. With a resigned sigh, Lexa nods for Clarke to go back inside and follows her quickly when Clarke reluctantly steps back, and closes the door behind her.

Clarke is already across the room, and Lexa feels like she could fill an ocean in the distance between them. Bitter disappointment floods her system, because despite the way Clarke snapped at her, Lexa had still been hoping that Clarke might still stay close, fall into her arms the moment they had privacy. But Clarke is clearly trying to keep her distance, for whatever reason.

“I have to go back to Arkadia,” Clarke starts immediately, words a little rough and jumbled in her urgency, “there’s no time. I have to warn them about the Ice Nation -,”

“Clarke,” Lexa cuts her off, voice gentle but insistent, “I brought you here to keep _you_ safe from the Ice Nation. The summit is in a week, you will see your people then.”

Clarke’s eyes flash. Lexa can see even from nearly ten feet away that the muscles along her jaw are jumping, and her hands are clenching into fists.

“It will be too late by then,” the words come out a low, angry growl, and Lexa’s skin prickles at the aggression in them, “either you weren’t listening yesterday, or you don’t believe me. The Ice Nation is going to blow up Mount Weather and all of Farm Station in it if I don’t get back to Arkadia, _now_.”

Suddenly feeling tired and resigned, Lexa heaves a slow, heavy sigh and drops into the chair beside her, head in her hands. “I was listening, Clarke. I believe you. I just don’t understand how you know this, how any of what you’re telling me is possible.”

For a moment, there’s nothing but silence. Lexa lifts her face from the cradle of her hands and looks up at Clarke, who is shifting her weight from foot to foot and looking everywhere in the room but at her. There’s something Clarke is not telling her, and it scrapes away at Lexa, sharp nails against soft skin slowly breaking in.

“I don’t know either,” Clarke finally says, but something in her voice indicates otherwise, “not that it matters, I have to set this right.”

Clarke charges for the door again, and Lexa hauls herself to her feet to stand in her way. She doesn’t want Clarke to go, but regardless of her own wants and needs, Clarke can’t go like this - alone and unarmed.

“It’s not safe,” Lexa insists, mind reeling with the recklessness of Clarke’s behavior. Clarke is already pushing against her, trying to fight past, and still won’t meet her eyes. “Clarke, we should talk about this!”

As suddenly as Clarke charged toward the door, she springs back, arms rising to brush off Lexa’s. Her eyes bounce across the room, everywhere but back at Lexa’s, and Clarke wraps her arms around herself defensively.

“Clarke, there is a solution,” Lexa continues, voice soft, and watches as Clarke shuffles backward, away from her, “Bow to me, and your people will be safe. No one will dare to move against you, because they’ll be moving against _me_.”

It hurts, the way Clarke won’t meet her eyes, the way she keeps herself just out of reach, the way she looks so _haunted_. And then Clarke finally looks up and at her, and Lexa has never seen them so blue before, as if the tears that stand against her eyelashes have intensified the color to a nearly painful brilliance. It nearly distracts Lexa completely from the hushed words Clarke whispers into the pregnant silence between them.

“That’s what you said before.”

For a long moment, Lexa only stares, caught by the brilliant hue of Clarke’s eyes and by the sudden softness in her face and in her voice. She doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what to do. Clarke sniffles, rubs her sleeve across her nose, and looks away.

“I’ll do it,” Clarke’s soft-spoken promise takes Lexa by surprise. She wishes she could understand what Clarke is feeling, see what’s going on in Clarke’s head, because all this hot-and-cold from Clarke is taking her for an insane loop and it’s making Lexa dizzy. “Next week, at the summit. I’ll bow, we’ll take the brand, and we’ll become the thirteenth clan, but that won’t matter if I can’t protect my people from the bomb the Ice Nation will set off in Mount Weather.”

The bomb Clarke says Carl Emerson gives the Ice Nation the codes to blow. Lexa had sent out scouts the night before to search for the Maunon warrior, but like Clarke, she suspects that he might already have been found and taken by the Ice Nation. And Clarke is right, tensions are already high between the Sky People and her own. A single act of violence, particularly of this magnitude, would start a war no one will know how to end.

Clarke has to go back to Arkadia, to her people, and warn them.

“What will you tell them?” Lexa asks after a long moment of silence. “Will you tell them what you told me?”

“No,” Clarke clears her throat on the word, shuffles her feet impatiently. “They won’t believe me.” _Not like you did._ The words Clarke doesn’t say hang in the air between them, heavy and loud. Clarke licks her lips and Lexa aches to reach over, to pull her close, to hold her like she held her the day before. Her arms feel somehow empty without Clarke wrapped in them. “I’ll tell them I heard it. From Azgeda warriors. I don’t know.”

It makes some sense. Clarke has been gone, missing, for months, and even Lexa doesn’t know what she’s been doing since the genocide in the mountain. Who’s to say she didn’t overhear a couple of Azgeda warriors talking about battle plans, considering how well she was hidden, how far she’s gone, and how well she’s learned their language?

“I’ll give you a horse,” Lexa forces herself to say, though the idea of letting Clarke go where Lexa cannot be there to watch over her spreads a painful ache in her chest. “And warriors to guard you, they can hide in the trees and won’t be seen by your people.” Lexa rushes to continue, voice raised to be heard, when Clarke starts to argue, “I brought you here for your safety; if I must let you go, a guard is not negotiable.”

For a long moment, Clarke is silent. She doesn’t meet Lexa’s eyes, but Lexa can hear her breathing, slightly arrhythmic and a little thick. Like she’s struggling not to cry. It’s altogether confusing, the way Clarke reacts to her, the way Clarke behaves around her. Like something has happened between them, like they’ve shared something, only Lexa can’t remember.

“Okay,” Clarke finally says in a rasping whisper. She looks up and meets Lexa’s eyes, and Lexa aches to pull her into an embrace like the night before, but Lexa knows that’s not what she needs. So Lexa nods slowly, her heart hammering wildly in her chest and her lungs contracting into themselves because while Clarke is gone, Lexa can’t protect her and it’s terrifying. She sets her face in stone, the same impassive expression she always wears when her insides feel so shredded and torn, and leaves.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta-ed and hot off the presses.
> 
> Sorry for the late update, guys. It's been busy. I hope everyone's doing okay! <3

Lexa can’t see Clarke from where she stands on her balcony. She can see all of Polis spread before her, can see the massive main gate that grants entrance to the city and the traders coming and going through it. She can see the markets, the bright tarps of the shops a burst of color amongst the starker, more drab earth-tones of the people that visit them. She can even see the training grounds beyond the wall, where her natblidas hone their skills, swallowed up by green moss and cool dappled shadows.

But Clarke is invisible to her, too well camouflaged amongst the hustle and bustle of Polis’s rich, thriving population. Lexa knows they are leaving from the smaller eastern gate - her and a dozen of Lexa’s best warriors - disguised as traders themselves. They’ll be riding out now, into the dense forest pressed against that side of Polis, and should be arriving at Tondisi by evening. If all goes to plan, Clarke will arrive at Arkadia before sunrise and Lexa knows that Clarke promised to come back in a week’s time for the summit, but there is nearly a day of travel in which Clarke risks capture by the Ice Nation, and Lexa is not convinced of Clarke’s safety in Arkadia even after she arrives. She won’t be convinced of Clarke’s safety from the Azplana’s cunning reach until Clarke is back in Polis tower, beside her again.

Lexa wonders if Clarke hates her. Wanheda’s behavior for the past couple of days has been erratic and unpredictable, her moods swinging wildly from panic to anger to a cold, hard kind of calm in an instant. But the way Clarke held her, the way Clarke cried, the way Clarke whimpered her name in ragged whispers across Lexa’s throat the day before as if there were no other words she ever wanted to say again but that… It was almost as if Clarke loved her, as if she’d mourned her, as if she missed her.

There’s a strange throb in Lexa’s chest, an amalgam of hurt and hope that is utterly confusing and utterly exhilarating at once. Something must have happened between her and Clarke, but no matter how Lexa searches her memory and examines their interactions since before the Mountain, she cannot decipher what it was. The only explanation is that Lexa really did die, and Clarke really is revisiting the past and something titanically significant happened between them. She aches to know what it is, yearns for the memories Clarke seems to be guarding jealously. But as deeply as she aches to know what it is, as much as it hurts that Clarke won’t tell her, it also gives her a tremendous amount of hope.

A soft noise rustles the curtains behind her. Lexa doesn’t need to turn to know that it’s Titus, and he moves to stand abreast of her with his arms clasped behind his back and his features carefully arranged in a blank expression.

“You’re letting her go?”

He doesn’t need to identify Clarke by name for Lexa to know immediately who he’s talking about.

“You don’t think I should.” It’s not a question. Lexa doesn’t look away from Polis spread out before her, but she can still see from the periphery of her vision the way Titus turns to look at her sharply.

“You brought her here for a reason, Heda,” Titus says calmly, though Lexa can hear an undercurrent of tension in his voice.

“To protect her from Queen Nia,” Lexa agrees quickly, “which is why she left disguised as someone else. Only you, I, and the warriors I sent with her know that Wanheda is no longer here, and it will stay that way until she is back.”

Lexa tilts her head to pierce Titus with a sharp stare, partially to drive her point home, but also because she wants to examine his reactions and his behavior whenever Clarke is brought up between them. He keeps his expression passive, but Lexa has known Titus nearly her whole life and she catches the flash of irritation that sparks in the depths of his dark eyes. Coils of frost tighten around her heart.

“Of course, Heda,” Titus lowers his chin in deference and turns his body to face her, indicating that, for him at least, their conversation is still not over.

It makes Lexa nervous. She never believed before that Titus might go against her orders, but Clarke told her how Titus had tried to kill her, and how he’d wound up killing Lexa instead. She’s still not completely sure what to believe. Titus has been a constant throughout her life and it hurts her to think he might cause her any kind of harm. But there is a curl to Titus’s lips now that shows his disdain of the whole situation, and now that Lexa knows to look for it, she finds Titus’s behavior a little suspect.

“We can expect Clarke to come back in time for the summit,” Lexa says slowly, head turned and eyes focused to watch Titus’s every reaction with extreme attention to detail. Titus’s eyebrows lift suddenly and briefly, his eyes widen as if he doesn’t believe what Lexa is saying, and Lexa sees the way his mouth tightens just a little, as if he is trying to control the words that come out.

He hesitates before finally turning to look at her. “Are you certain of that, Heda?”

“Yes,” Lexa insists, more firmly than she feels, “I am. She will bring her representatives here, and she will bow before me.” She watches, but Titus’s face remains impassive, carefully guarded. “You still think the summit is a bad idea.”

  
Frustration flits across Titus’s severe features for an instant. Lexa knows without having to ask that he disapproves, they have talked about this before at length. But that was before Clarke had told her everything, and now Lexa wants to pick apart every reason and every thought Titus has, to ferret out the path that leads him from loyal Fleimkepa to the traitor that murders her.

“You mean well, Heda,” Titus’s irritation bleeds through every softly spoken word, “but now is not the time for good intentions. Your enemies are circling, Queen Nia moves against you. Your focus should be here, instead you antagonize her further by offering the Skaikru a seat at your table.” He turns to look at Lexa, his gaze a weight over her skin that she wishes she could shed. But beneath his vexation, Lexa also senses concern. No matter what he may have done in Clarke’s past, he loves Lexa. He is the only father Lexa has known, and Lexa can’t fathom how to stop caring for him.

She turns to look at him slightly, lips pulled back in a light frown and shoulders tensed against the perturbing turn of her thoughts. “I will not let the fear of war dictate our agenda.” Her voice is tight and clipped, a clear indication she does not want to argue about this anymore.

But Titus is familiar enough with her that he remains undeterred. “Why are you doing this?” He grumbles. His brow furrows, and his voice takes on an dissenting lilt Lexa would not accept from anyone else. “The Sky People did not ask for this. Not one of the twelve clans will accept it, -”

“They _will_ accept it,” Lexa snaps, hoping the irritation in her tone is enough to drown the doubt she feels, “when they see Wanheda bow before me.”

For a long, tense moment, there is silence. Titus’s stare burns a hole through her, and Lexa feels like she is thirteen again, only just ascended, and making a rash decision Titus knows he will eventually steer her away from. She hates that he can make her feel this way. She hates that she feels this way about keeping Clarke safe.

When Titus speaks again, his voice is soft, gentle. “She defies everything you are, Heda. Yet everything you do elevates her. Why?”

“Clarke elevates herself,” Lexa murmurs back softly, unable to hide the tenderness that steals through her words, “she’s special.” Perhaps for reasons she never anticipated before, if everything Clarke said is true and she really has traveled through time.

“You’re special, Heda,” Lexa can hear the affection in her teacher’s tone, and it calms the chaos storming through her overturned heart a little, “I’ve been Fleimkepa for four commanders. No one has done what you have.” There’s so much pride in Titus’s voice that Lexa feels guilty for the way she suspects him. She looks away, over the balcony and out across the city, because she can’t stand seeing so much pride and worry in her mentor’s eyes. “We are so close to our goal. If you want the power of Wanheda, you know what must be done.”

Lexa grits her teeth, praying he does not continue any further than that.

“You strike her down,” Titus’s voice is low and hard, “Kill her. Take her power.”

_She can’t_. Lexa closes her eyes and sucks in a long, deep breath, trying to still her raging heart and the fury boiling in her blood. Loving Clarke has made her powerless to deny any of Clarke’s wants and needs; but it has also given her a strength and a determination to create a world that is safe for them both. She can see the seeds of violence growing in her otherwise pacifistic mentor, and it disturbs her, especially knowing what Clarke has told her.

What if she can’t be there to take the bullet when Titus tries to kill Clarke in this time stream?

Lexa tenses, and forces herself to look at Titus again, her expression as grave and severe as she can make it, “Yu nou trana bash op Klark, nami?”

A muscle in Titus’s jaw tics. Lexa sees him swallow, sees the way his mouth tightens before he sucks his lips between his teeth and the way his jaw clenches. When he finally answers, Lexa can hear the tension and reluctance in his voice, “sha, Heda,” and it makes her stomach drop.

But there’s nothing more she can say now, nothing she can accuse him of, and he is the only Flamekeeper she has. He is the only father she knows. The best she can do is pray that the preparations she and Clarke set in motion before Clarke left will be enough to prevent conflict between their people, and that all of it will be enough to keep Clarke safe from Titus.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s so late at night by the time she reaches the gates of Arkadia that it’s almost morning. A profound hush lies over the growing city, thick with sleep and heavy with ignorance of what’s to come. Clarke feels it like a block of ice steaming and burning against a hot stove. It makes her skin itch with discomfort.

She wants to scream to wake them. The inside of her head feels so chaotically loud that the silence surrounding her feels wrong and unnatural. She wonders if she’ll always feel this way, but she can’t think past today and tomorrow and getting Pike away from Bellamy and stopping the war just bubbling under the surface of all this serenity. She’s standing in front of the door of Mount Weather again, so heavily focused on just getting through this crisis she’s lost sight of everything else. How much longer can she keep doing this before she loses sight of herself?

“Clarke?”

A voice Clarke doesn’t recognize breaks the quiet. A face flashes above the ramparts, one Clarke thinks she may have seen in passing once, but can’t entirely recall. It’s gone almost as soon as it appears in the thin, pale moonlight, then the weighted grind of gears shatters what is left of the silence and the gates slowly start to cave in.

Her people still recognize her, even under the red dye in her hair and the clothes she’d borrowed from Lexa. Her face is no longer covered, and that probably helps, but it still takes her a little off guard. A shout rings through the still air over the groan of the opening gates. Finally, sore and exhausted, Clarke slides off her horse. Her muscles creak under her weight, she’s completely stiff with cold. But there’s no time to rest.

“My mother?” Clarke asks without preamble as the guard’s face appears beside her. He’s staring at her wide-eyed while others close the heavy doors behind them.

“We called for everyone,” he tells her in a breathy voice, like he can’t decide if this is real or a dream. Clarke can relate. “They’re coming.”

She doesn’t bother to even nod her acknowledgment, only turns to check behind her that the warriors that followed her here are still invisible in the darkness. The guards that surround her look vaguely familiar - cleaner versions of the young men and women that had come down with her on the dropship, of the others that had come down in the weeks since. Even after traveling through time, it feels like forever since she’s last seen any of them, and they look older.

“Clarke?” Abby’s voice is rough with sleep, but instantly recognizable. Clarke spins in place to find her mother racing up toward her, arms outstretched, and Clarke gratefully falls into them. “Clarke, are you okay? Where have you been? Are you hurt? Are you hungry? Are you -” the deluge of questions that crash over her are overwhelming, but for the moment, Clarke is speechless and content to just let her mother hold her. Abby’s hands drift over her, checking for injuries until Clarke pushes them and Abby gently away. It’s good to see her mom again, but they don’t have time for this.

“I’m fine, mom,” Clarke insists quietly, cringing to hear how hoarse her voice is. She sees Bellamy and Kane reach them from over Abby’s shoulder. “We need to talk. Privately.”

It makes her uncomfortable, being so heavily under scrutiny, watched by her friends and mother like she might suddenly disappear if they so much as blink. But they’re all welcoming at least. Bellamy’s eyes are not cold yet, like they’d been when he left Polis in the past that never was. Kane grins slightly at her, relief evident in every line of his face. Abby’s hand bracelets Clarke’s wrist, tight and firm and refusing to let go.

“You’re finally back,” Bellamy smiles a little, his expression turning mildly confused as Clarke pulls him, Kane and her mother along to the council chambers and ignores the curious eyes of the guards as they go along. “I knew you would be,” he continues, but it sounds more like a question.

Clarke spares him a look. Bellamy shifts under her gaze, arms opening like he wants to hug her, but Clarke can’t forget that he massacred three-hundred warriors in their sleep. “We missed you, Clarke,” Bellamy says, clearly uncomfortable now with the way Clarke won’t hold his eyes.

He’s not that man yet. Clarke struggles to remind herself that he’s not a murderer yet, that she still has time to protect him from that.

“I missed you too, Bell,” Clarke lies, “but this is important, and you all need to hear this.”

 

* * *

 

 

For a long while, there is nothing but silence. Clarke can hear their brains buzzing with this new information and sucks in a breath to prepare herself for the questions.

“And… how do you know this?” Bellamy asks first, a slight bristle to his tone that sounds a little too aggressive for Clarke’s taste. But she’s too tired to argue, and recycles her earlier excuse again.

“I told you,” Clarke sighs and collapses backward into her chair, “I overheard a pair of Azgeda talking. They have Emerson, -”

“Why would they think we’d be in Mount Weather?” Kane interrupts, his expression a mixture of disbelief and resignation, “Our agreement with the Trikru is that we only go inside in small groups, to scavenge supplies -,”

“I know,” Clarke interrupts in return, with an ill-concealed edge of annoyance just coloring her tone, “but they clearly seem to think a large group of us will be in there.”

They’re going over and over the same points again. Clarke has told them at least a dozen times already that the Ice Nation thinks Lexa weak, that they’re looking to start a war, that they hate the Arkadians simply for existing, and she’s exhausted. She runs a hand through her matted, filthy hair and sighs heavily. Bellamy still looks confused and skeptical, Kane nods apologetically at her, and her mother… Abby is simply staring at her, expression so unreadable Clarke thinks she must have been taking lessons from Indra. “Look, I told you what I know,” Clarke starts again, trying desperately to be as patient as possible, “and I think our best course of action is to become part of the Coalition.”

“You think they’re going to let us in, just like that?” Abby’s arms cross over her chest, she squints scrutinizingly at Clarke.

Clarke already knows Lexa will. She knows Lexa loves her, that this is the best and only way Lexa knows to protect Clarke, and that she is willing to do it despite the retaliation from the other clans it will bring her. Clarke knows Lexa will let them into the Coalition from experience too, but she can’t tell them why, because telling them will discredit everything she’s said so far. Or at the very least, it will tear down what little trust they still seem to have in her. Still, Clarke nods as convincingly as she knows how.

“Lexa gains nothing by going to war with us,” Clarke says softly, “but making us the thirteenth clan means access to medicine and technology that’s been lost to them for a hundred years. And if I bow to her,” Clarke sucks in a tight breath, memories flashing behind her lightly shut eyelids, “it makes her look strong. It’s a show of power over the Commander of Death.”

Silence again. Clarke opens her eyes, and sees Bellamy staring at her thoughtfully, and a little tersely. “It puts us under her protection, and if the Ice Nation attack us, they’ll be attacking her and the entire Coalition. It’ll make them hesitate at the very least, and put an army at our backs at the worst.”

“An army we can’t trust,” Bellamy grumbles.

“We don’t even know if Lexa will invite us into the Coalition,” Abby argues.

Clarke opens her mouth to fight back, past her exhaustion and her frayed nerves and her swiftly rising temper.

“Okay.”

Kane’s sharp, strong agreement takes them all a little by surprise. Everyone turns to stare at him, and he smiles a little thinly through his thick beard. Abby frowns, “What?”

It’s too soon to feel relief. Kane is staring thoughtfully at her mother, but Abby is the Chancellor, not Kane, and she gets the final say in this, and Clarke knows it’s too soon to feel relieved. She grips the edges of her chair, praying that even if she can’t convince them, maybe Kane will.

“You’re the Chancellor, Abby,” Kane says slowly, eyes completely focused on Clarke’s mother, “and the decision is ultimately up to you. But I think we should do what Clarke says.”

“You do?” It sounds almost like a challenge coming from Abby, but Clarke notes that the expression on her mother’s face is more thoughtful and questioning than angry. Kane nods.

“What Clarke told us makes sense,” he continues, speaking slowly and carefully and keeping his gaze completely fixed on Abby. “Peace is our primary objective. If the Commander is offering us a seat at her table, we might be closer to achieving it than ever before. Especially if the Ice Nation is planning an attack against us.” Abby shifts her stare from him to Clarke, hesitates noticeably, then sighs and shrugs.

“We leave in the morning,” Clarke grumbles as she forces herself to her feet. “We have to hurry. I’ll take Kane and Pike with me. Bellamy, I want you to stay here with my mom and keep everyone in Arkadia. You’ll be safest here.”

Weighed down by her exhaustion and worn out by her fears, Clarke retreats to her room then, ignoring the sound of her name on the lips of people she used to know but isn’t sure she recognizes anymore. She only has a couple of hours to rest before it will be time to move, though whether she will sleep at all is a question she’s too afraid to ask. She finds her old cell in the remains of the Skybox and stretches out on her old cot. Her old drawings are still there, ghosts of the girl she used to be and a naivete and the clear conscience she mourns.

It’s here that Clarke curls in on herself, holds her knees to her chest and clutches her arms, afraid that she might crumble if she lets go. Her hold on sanity feels weak, tenuous. She’s not sure if it’s the lack of sleep or the jump through time or the loss of the woman she loves, but she thinks she’s unraveling. In the darkness, she can’t remember if Lexa is alive or not. She can’t remember if she’s mourned her, or if, when they arrive in Polis, Lexa will still be there, alive and patient and loving her silently. Clarke mourns either way, because even if Lexa lives, Clarke’s arms around her spell a death sentence.

Eventually, Clarke sweeps the tears from her eyes. Abby finds her curled on her cot once the preparations for the journey are complete, and Clarke finds a semblance of rest in her mother’s arms, if only for a few minutes. She’s grateful for Abby’s silence, grateful that her mother has missed her enough just to hold her without asking where she’s been and what she’s done. She makes her mother promise they will not make any more scavenging trips to Mount Weather until the Ice Nation has been dealt with; and then it’s time to go once again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

By the time they leave Arkadia, Indra has already brought a small army of warriors to the Skaikru city’s main gate. They hide in the trees, nearly invisible amongst the leaves and bark and dappled shadows. Only Indra drops into the dirt path ahead of them, with news that Lexa has sent them to keep Arkadia safe from the Azgeda. She doesn’t seem surprised that Clarke is among them, but the light in her eyes takes on a suspicious glint when Clarke asks to speak with her alone.

“I received a message from the Commander last night to bring my gona here,” Indra murmurs to Clarke under her breath. She sounds as caustic as ever, and it’s a far cry from the last memory Clarke has of her, bleeding and crippled and angry. It’s a relief to see, because it’s more proof that when Clarke arrives in Polis again, Lexa will still be there, living and breathing. “How interesting that you should suddenly turn up here then,” Indra continues, worry and suspicion clear in her voice, “when you’ve been missing for three months.”

For a moment, Clarke considers lying to her the way she lied to Kane, Bellamy and her mother. But there’s no point. Indra will not ask questions, as long as Clarke’s orders do not contradict Lexa’s.

“It’s not a coincidence, if that’s what you’re asking,” Clarke finally says, trying to impress as much severity in her words and her expression as she can. Indra’s eyebrows knit across her forehead, her mouth tenses, but she says nothing. “I know Lexa gave you orders to protect Arkadia from Azgeda, but keep your eye on the Skaikru too.”

Indra’s eyes turn flinty at the warning, and the suspicion Clarke had barely heard in her voice before suddenly becomes visible in every line of Indra’s face.

“What is that supposed to mean, Sky Girl?” It comes out a low growl, but Clarke is unfazed. She would prefer Indra wary and mistrustful than dead.

“It means you need to be alert,” Clarke responds without hesitation, careful to keep her voice as bland and open as possible, “Farm Station harbors a lot of anger toward Azgeda, and haven’t learned the difference between the clans yet.” Indra is staring, but Clarke doesn’t buckle under her fierce gaze. Finally, Indra concedes. She dips her chin in a slow nod of acknowledgment and her tense body loosens slightly. And then, with a final, tiny smile quirked in Kane’s direction, Indra melts into the trees.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday, everyone, and Happy Anniversary to Marriage Equality in the US!
> 
> I know this is not a particularly long chapter, but I liked where it ended. I know some of you were excited for the bow scene, so I hope it meets expectations.
> 
> Once again, this chapter is un-betaed. Any and all errors are mine.

She has barely been gone two days, but Lexa is anxiously waiting for Clarke to arrive. She’s been pacing in her throne room for the past hour, watching the sun set past the thin linen drapes distractedly. Every bad scenario has played itself out in her head, many of them more than once, and Lexa is ready to ride out to greet the Skaikru delegation herself.

When Titus finally pushes the double doors open, Lexa freezes in the middle of the floor and looks up sharply in expectation, hoping against hope that Clarke will appear behind him through the veil of dimness twilight has cast. But he’s alone, and Lexa’s heart stops; she feels the blood drain from her face, sure that Clarke has been attacked and kidnapped or killed. She opens her mouth to snarl at him to spit it out, but finds her voice is frozen, locked in her chest between lungs squeezing with panic.

The look Titus gives her is both searching and disapproving at once. He doesn’t give voice to it, however, only dips his head in deference and murmurs softly, “Wanheda has returned,” and Lexa is out the door in the space of a heartbeat.

She can hear her pulse hammer in her ears, hard and fast and heavy. Her hands are clammy, and visions of Clarke, bruised, beaten, bleeding, flash incessantly before her eyes. Deaf and numb to the guards that watch her march past with troubled looks on their faces, she makes the trip to Clarke’s room. And when she finally arrives at the door, she forgets to knock and barges straight in.

Clarke is here. Half-dressed beside a steaming bath, looking haggard and worn, but none the worse for wear. There are no fresh bruises decorating her body, no fresh blood against the grimy white of her pale skin. She’s standing in her small-clothes, breast band tumbling to the floor, her expression a mask of surprise over an ill-concealed array of emotions flashing beneath. Shock, relief, joy, and finally, guilt, all war for precedence in the lines of exhaustion in her features, none of them as strong nor as present as one Lexa can’t read - because it can’t be - … love.

And then Clarke seems to realize how exposed she is mere seconds before Lexa realizes the same. Lexa’s face burns molten, she spins on her heel to the sound of Clarke’s incoherent splutters and marches right back out, slamming the door shut behind her.

Lexa’s heart is stammering wildly in her chest, but for a different reason now. Clarke is safe. Clarke is here. Clarke is beautiful even under layers of filth and sweat, and Lexa wants to crumple to the ground with the wild relief she feels pounding through every inch of her frame that Clarke is alive. Clarke is not Costia. Clarke will not be another Costia.

Clarke will _not_ be another Costia.

Lexa forces a breath through her wrung-out lungs, teeth grit to hold her passive expression under the watchful eyes of the guards posted on either side of Clarke’s door. She wishes they were not here, so that she can take a moment to collect her scattered emotions in privacy. But until Nia is gone and all threats to Clarke’s life are dealt with, Lexa will not leave her Sky Girl unprotected.

“Commander?”

Clarke’s voice is muffled through the door. Then Lexa hears it creak open behind her, forces herself to swallow, and turns.

There’s a towel around Clarke’s chest now, something Lexa notices immediately with equal measures of disappointment and relief.

“I’m sorry, Clarke. I should have knocked,” Lexa grits out past the massive lump clogging her throat.

Clarke only shrugs awkwardly. “You can come in,” her voice is hoarse, rough with the weariness stamped across her face, “I don’t mind.”

She’d only meant to see that Clarke was alright, and now that she has, Lexa knows she should leave. Her feet don’t seem to have gotten the message though, because Lexa finds herself following Clarke back into her room. The door shuts with a soft ‘click’ this time, and Lexa stands frozen just inside while Clarke pads to the massive tub, and with her back to Lexa, drops the towel to her feet and eases herself into the steaming water. Lexa’s mouth is a desert, her stomach is twisted into knots, there’s a fog in her brain, and Lexa is already struggling to think past the intense relief she feels to know that Clarke is alive and here.

“I’m fine,” Clarke’s rasp breaks through the thick molasses of Lexa’s clumsy thoughts and brings her back to the present. “I know you were worried. But I’m fine.” Clarke sucks in a breath, and then her head and shoulders dip below the water’s surface and disappear. Lexa takes the moment Clarke is under to swallow past the lump jamming her throat and breathe. When Clarke surfaces again, it’s on the opposite side of the tub, so that they are facing each other.

“The summit is in three days,” Lexa says, for lack of anything better to say. She clasps her hands behind her back, they’re still clammy with nerves. Clarke nods, as if she can’t see the blush still burning in Lexa’s cheeks, and runs her fingers through her hair. Red dye clings to the matted strands, but the natural gold of Clarke’s hair is beginning to glow through.

“I’ll keep my word,” Clarke promises, “I’ll bow to you, and Kane will take the brand.”

“My scouts have been searching the woods for miles around Polis,” Lexa continues, unsure what else to talk about, even while Clarke bathes in front of her, “but there is no sign of Emerson.”

It’s all business between them. This is almost the most intimate she and Clarke have ever been, excluding their confrontation and kiss three months ago, but it’s all business between them and Lexa isn’t sure how to feel about it. Clarke is not screaming profanities or trying to kill her, but she is naked in front of her and pretending like it doesn’t matter.

Instead, Clarke only nods tiredly and closes her eyes.

“Mount Weather is empty, she has no use for him right now,” Clarke’s voice is rough and quiet, and Lexa wonders if the words are even directed at her, or if they’re simply thoughts spoken aloud. “Thank you for the warriors you sent with Indra,” Clarke opens an eye to regard Lexa thoughtfully, “to protect my people from the Ice Nation.”

“I said I believed you, Clarke,” she murmurs into the quiet settling around them, “it is important that this peace holds. I want your people to become my people.”

Clarke’s face softens. Gratitude and a soul-deep grief shine through her features, so intertwined they seem one and the same. Lexa aches to reach across the distance between them, to pull Clarke into her arms again and soothe the hurt like she had the first time she found Clarke in this room. But she knows she can’t, and that knowledge is suffocating. “I’ll inform you if we do find Emerson, Clarke,” Lexa excuses herself, words choked past her lingering relief that Clarke is okay, and the embarrassing thrill of seeing Clarke so bare. With a final whispered, “I’m relieved you’re well,” she turns and slips away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Somehow, she manages to avoid Lexa for two days even inside the Commander’s own tower.

Even with her frequent trips out of her room, she somehow manages to avoid Lexa, to Clarke’s combined regret and relief. It’s easier than she expected it to be, the tower is so big and they’re both so busy. There’s so much to do, not just to prepare for the summit, but also to make sure that Clarke’s past does not repeat itself.

That means making sure Pike is exposed to as much peaceful Grounder life as possible.

Kane is helpful. He loves everything about the ground, including its culture, cuisine and politics. He’s eager when they take trips through the marketplace, encouraging his old friend to try the grilled meats and the strange fruit and the sticky-sweet desserts. He talks to everyone, showing off his repertoire of newly learned Trigedasleng with pride, and translating for Pike when Clarke is absent, or otherwise too distracted or tired to do it herself. They watch children play in the streets, and they haggle for luxury items they’d never been able to keep on the Ark, like candles and tobacco and liquid soaps that turn into bubbles in the water.

And when she’s not with Pike and Kane, Clarke spends every spare moment she has trying to map out and plan every event that leads to Lexa’s death, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

But Clarke can’t avoid Lexa forever.

The night of the summit, Clarke is given the same dress to wear as the one she remembers. The same girl helps her with her braids and her war paint. When Clarke looks in the mirror, she isn’t sure if what she’s seeing is something she remembers from a past that’s being replaced, or from a dream. It makes her skin itch with nerves, and her stomach twist into knots. It makes her chest feel tight and her thoughts run in wild directions. She’s exhausted before she even makes it to the closed double door to Lexa’s throne room.

Then the music starts. Slow and mournful, more dirge than anthem. It stirs in the hollows of Clarke’s soul. This moment is burned into her memory, and it will burn into her memory again. The doors open, and Clarke sees the Ambassadors of the twelve clans lined along the throne room. She sees Kane and Pike this time, instead of Kane and her mother, standing and watching, now with more interest than hesitation, more assuredness than concern, in their expressions.

And she sees Lexa.

Stepping inside is like stepping into a recurring dream. The tides carry her along, bitter-sweet, too strong to resist. Lexa waits for her at the apex of her throne, beautiful and strange in a long dress and warpaint, a breathtaking agreement of girl and woman, warrior and peace-maker. Clarke sees wonder flicker in the darkened depths of Lexa’s eyes, and feels a resounding flutter in the pit of her stomach. She strides forward, her steps slow and sure, and drops to one knee at Lexa’s feet. Over the heightening a Capella, Clarke hears Lexa’s soft exhalation of breath - a sigh of relief, of admiration, and of gratitude, all at once.

It’s poetic, Clarke thinks. The acceptance of a new clan to the Coalition is so much like a wedding, a marriage of two peoples, in good times and in bad. An oath of loyalty to supersede all other loyalties. A commitment to stand by each other, to protect and nurture and support.

It makes Clarke feel sick. Because Roan is watching and his mother was allowed to make this same commitment to Lexa and to the Coalition after murdering the girl Lexa loved. And if the metaphor is to hold true, then Nia intends to commit mariticide on the woman Clarke loves, on the people Kane has embraced, and on the culture that forgave all of them their sins.

Roan is the first to dip to his knees. Then Titus, and all the others in the room follow suit. The final notes fade in the slight breeze that whispers in through the balcony. The spell breaks.

“Hail, warriors of the Twelve Clans,” Lexa is all Commander, her voice hard and flinty and cold.

Without looking up, the room greets her in return, their chorus of voices low and respectful, “Hail, Commander of the Blood.”

Everything is as Clarke remembers it, down to the inflection of Lexa’s voice as she bids them all to rise. Even the startling femininity of her voice is the same as she welcomes her ambassadors and the Arkadians to Polis.

“We welcome Skaikru to our halls in the spirit of friendship and harmony,” Lexa starts, glittering dark eyes roaming across the room to light on everyone, “and we welcome Clarke Kom Skaikru,” her voice strengthens, and it thickens the swell that aches in Clarke’s chest, “Legendary Wanheda, Mountain Slayer.”

There’s a brief pause. Clarke looks up at Lexa, unable to keep her gaze away for long. Lexa is a vision in the candlelight, tanned skin glowing warm and sparkling eyes bright beneath the thick black lines of her war-paint. Just as she had been once, Clarke is floored again, but this time the intense attraction she feels is only sadly acknowledged, rather than fiercely denied. She wants to reach across and touch, but she knows she can’t, and Lexa’s features are hardening with the words she’s about to speak.

“We are not here to negotiate a treaty with the Skaikru, but rather, to initiate them into the Coalition.”

The hall’s reverent hush shatters into loud murmurs and exclamations of shock and disapproval. This news is not welcome now, just as it wasn’t welcome in Clarke’s then, and it makes Clarke distinctly uneasy. She’s not sure she made the right choice to bring her people into Lexa’s Coalition, because she’s not sure that this isn’t the moment Lexa’s fate is sealed. After everything Clarke’s people have done in the past that has yet to happen, Clarke isn’t even sure she wants to do this, because doing it would be entirely for their sake, but until they give her a reason not to in this time stream, she can’t help but still feel responsible for them.

But the moment they make Clarke choose between the Skaikru and Lexa, it’s over. Because Clarke knows now that she’ll choose Lexa every single time.

“To symbolize this union, the leader of the Skaikru must bear our mark,” Lexa speaks over the dissenting voices of the crowd, and shakes Clarke out of her dark thoughts. Clarke watches the way Pike frowns, his lips turning in baffled concern. But he says nothing. Kane smiles and nods reassuringly at him before he steps forward.

“Present your arm.”

Clarke can hear the sizzle of the hot steel against Kane’s forearm, and the stench of burning flesh makes her want to gag. She holds her breath while Kane’s face pales and he grits his teeth through the pain, waiting to see if Bellamy bursts through the doors behind her with a Trikru guard trapped against the mouth of his gun.

But nothing happens. The man branding Kane steps away, and Kane steps backward into the shadows. The stink of charred flesh lingers in the air, and a chair is brought to the circle lining the sides of the room, and then it’s over. Kane sits down gratefully, and Clarke is so overwhelmed by her relief that it’s all she can focus on for the next few hours.

She’s not sure what is being discussed for a long time. Her gaze lingers between Lexa, Pike and the door, waiting for the other shoe to drop while the summit drags on. But Bellamy does not burst through the doors, and Pike doesn’t explode in anger and disgust. Nothing happens. Then the summit ends and the other Ambassadors and their delegates file out the double doors, Pike and Kane among them. She assumes that they are in a hurry to get to a healer to get Kane’s brand cleaned and bandaged, because they only glance her way to make sure she’s following after.

She does. At least, she tries. But as Clarke reaches the threshold, she finds her wrist braceleted in a firm but gentle grip.

“Clarke, wait.”

Lexa’s voice is soft, low, like she’s trying to keep from spooking a wild animal. Clarke doesn’t want to turn, doesn’t want to face those warm briny-green eyes, because she remembers what happened before, at the end of the summit and the end of the night.

But she can’t seem to pull herself away. Lexa’s grip is tenacious, if tender, and Clarke doesn’t want to pull away, no matter how necessary she knows it is. So Clarke turns, hating the heat that rims her eyes, and pleads with her expression for Lexa to let her go. The door clangs shut behind them, leaving Clarke and Lexa alone in the flickering candlelight and the shadows that play along the floor and walls and along the sweet, warm planes of Lexa’s face.

And then Lexa’s hand loosens from Clarke’s, and Lexa drops to both knees.

“No, Lexa -,” Clarke is breathless, her chest contracting and her stomach bottoming out with the sudden terror that fills her. This may be the moment that Clarke must avoid, it might be the oath that seals Lexa’s fate, and Clarke can’t let it happen. She bends to hook her hands around Lexa’s arms in an attempt to pull Lexa up, but Lexa holds fast on her knees.

“Please, Clarke,” Lexa is staring up at her, face set in the same expression it had been in Clarke’s memories, open and vulnerable and grave, “let me do this.”

Clarke feels like she’s choking. The hard lump she’s been trying to swallow all night has risen in her throat and clots the words she’s trying to say. She tugs weakly at Lexa, trying to pull her up, trying to keep her from this, but Lexa’s hands rise to frame Clarke’s arms and steady her.

“Whether you prevent me from saying the words out loud or not, my loyalty is yours,” Lexa’s voice is so soft, so gentle, it cracks along the fissures of Clarke’s heart. Clarke feels like she can’t breathe, and her knees are shaking. “Please, Clarke,” Lexa is begging, eyes dark in the shadows and glittering emerald in the candle-light, “let me do this.”

Clarke can’t see past the tears blurring her vision. She’s struggling to hold her mask of indifference in place, but it keeps slipping, and her legs feel like jelly. “Don’t,” she chokes out, the word mangled nearly beyond recognition, “don’t.”

 

 

Lexa is stunned by Clarke’s reaction. She’s stunned by the tears rimming Clarke’s eyes and slipping down her cheeks. She’s stunned by the tremor in Clarke’s arms and the strength of the grip in her hands over Lexa’s shoulders, trying to pull her up. She’s stunned by the terror in Clarke’s face, and the tragic beauty of Clarke’s lower lip shivering with the attempt to hold in everything she’s feeling.

In this moment, it’s not so hard to believe that Clarke might love her. It makes Clarke look so vulnerable, so much like an eighteen year-old girl, tired and broken by her past. It makes her want to swear her loyalty to Clarke all the more. It makes her want to wrap her arms around Clarke’s waist and bury her words in Clarke’s stomach, planted with sweet kisses so that they might grow strong and eternal in the woman she loves.

She struggles against that impulse, uncertain how such an intimate display of affection might be received. But to her surprise, Clarke sinks to her knees too, trembling hands gliding over Lexa’s arms to settle over her shoulders.

“Don’t,” Clarke is begging, the word strained with a grief so thick and so intense it feels physical, “please don’t.” Lexa is stunned when Clarke leans into her. She’s stunned by the sharp sting of Clarke’s tears against her throat again. And she’s stunned by the way Clarke’s chest heaves against her own. Slowly, carefully, Lexa wraps her arms around Clarke’s shuddering body and buries her face in Clarke’s hair. The dreds are rough and scratchy beneath her nose, and the bitter scent of the berry juice that stained them still lingers, but the clean smell of their soap also clings to the thin braids and thick strands. Clarke is still stuttering ‘don’t’ softly into the crook of Lexa’s shoulder, and Lexa’s chest swells, because in this moment it’s impossible not to believe that Clarke loves her.

More than ever, Lexa needs to swear her loyalty to Clarke. More than ever, she needs to promise never to betray Clarke again, not just for Clarke’s sake but for her own. Leaving Clarke behind on Mount Weather three months ago had shattered her heart and ripped her soul to shreds, and she needs Clarke to know it will never happen again. She needs to say the words, as if they are the cure to the regret poisoning her very existence.

But the way Clarke trembles against her and the way Clarke stammers ‘don’t’ against her tell Lexa that making that promise out loud would only hurt the woman she loves. And Lexa can’t do that. Not again. Never again. So instead, Lexa runs her fingers through Clarke’s hair and mouths the words silently into Clarke’s ear, and hopes that Clarke can’t hear her. She lets the promise of her fealty bleed from her own stuttering heart into Clarke’s, and instead of saying the words out loud, she pours them into the strength of her arms around Clarke and the soothing kisses she presses into Clarke’s hair.

“Okay,” Lexa says softly then, “you’re okay, Clarke.”

Clarke’s ragged pleas taper off into choked sobs. Lexa holds her until her knees ache against the hard stone floor, until Clarke can breathe normally again, until Clarke forces herself to stand and holds her hand out for Lexa to take. Lexa would have held her until the world crumbled around them; instead, she pretends not to feel the cramp in her legs when she follows Clarke out of the throne room and they separate again just outside it’s heavy double doors.

 


	6. Author's Note

Wow, this is loooooong overdue.

 

First of all, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, for all the amazing comments and kudos you guys leave me. They make a huge difference, and even though I haven't responded to any in a long time, I still read each and every one of them multiple times.

 

Second of all, I'm so, so, SO sorry. No, I'm not quitting this story, it's just going to be on hiatus for a while longer. Excuses suck, so I'll give you an explanation, and an idea of when I might start posting chapters again.

 

This summer was a big financial disaster for me. I'm still only beginning to recover from it, actually. It's been so bad I haven't always been sure whether I'd be able to pay my rent, let alone car bills, student loans, groceries... but I'm finally beginning to get ahead of the game. 

This means that I've actually been freelancing overtime as a creative writer to get that extra bit of cash to pay my bills. I got seriously burned out over the summer. Around the end of August, I started a stable temp job that pays enough to take care of my bills (most of them overdue) without freelancing, and just a few weeks ago I learned that there's a real possibility that this temp position might turn into a contract. I'm crossing my fingers and doing everything I can to make that a reality, because ya'll, being broke as shit sucks. Living paycheck to paycheck sucks. Worrying whether I'd have a job tomorrow, make just enough to squeak by tomorrow - you guessed it - sucks.

Around a few weeks ago, I decided I was ready to get back into the writing game - but this time to write an actual book that I can actually get published under my actual name and keep actual rights and get actual money for. I'm very excited, it's my NaNo project for this year. I seriously considered making Second Chances my NaNo, but guys this has been my dream and being taken so seriously as a freelancer has made me realize that being a published author isn't  **just** a pipedream. I hope you guys will be happy for me. 

None of this means I'll be abandoning this story. It just means I won't be working on it until December, when NaNo is over. I'll be working simultaneously on finishing my original work and on updating Second Chances then, so most likely updates will still be slow. I might hold off on posting until Second Chances is complete so I can establish a regular posting schedule. Either way, I'll keep you guys in the loop with another Author's Note in early December.

You guys rock. I've read every single comment you've all left me, many times over, especially on my hardest days, and they really kept me going. There aren't enough words to describe how great you all are. I have so much love for all of you.

 

Tl;dr - Life's been sucky but it's getting better and updates for Second Chances might start as early as December, I'll let you guys know. You guys are the best.

 

If you want to keep up with my progress on NaNoWriMo.org, my username there is Seraferosa (shocker!)  You can even find info on the book I'm writing in my profile. I made a cover for it and everything! You can also still find me on tumblr, @serafaerosa.tumblr.com, as well. So much love to you guys!

 

May we meet again,

Serafaerosa


	7. Chapter 7

She hasn’t slept since she left Lexa behind at the door to the throne room. Her eyes sting with exhaustion, dry after the tears she’s shed. Her heart feels as heavy as her limbs. She feels thin, almost unreal, like mist scattered and swirling across the ground. The relief she’d felt in Lexa’s arms are another burden she has to carry, because she’d felt the oath Lexa had not said out loud in the warmth of her embrace. Because Lexa must know by know how much Clarke feels for her, and Clarke is afraid of what their feelings for each other mean for Lexa. And she’s afraid of how much she wants to give in to them.

Her hot bath and light breakfast have helped a little. She feels a bit more herself in ordinary clothes than in a gown and warpaint. The prospect of all the work still to be done and all the planning still to be considered is a comfort and a distraction from her ruminations over the events of the night before.

She’s grateful when Pike and Kane poke their heads in through the door.

“Ready to come home, Clarke?” Kane smiles warmly at her, though the dark rings under his eyes betray his own sleepless night.

Clarke tries to smile back, but she feels the corners of her mouth stiffen into a scowl.

“We _are_ going home, aren’t we?” Pike says with a frown. His body is tensed, hands curled into fists at his sides and his shoulders raised defensively. Clarke knows he’s tired of Polis, Kane’s enthusiasm had won him over for a little while, but it’s clear he’s uncomfortable here, and still doesn’t much care for or respect his hosts. She still has a lot of work to do to warm Pike up to the idea of peaceful co-habitation with the Grounders.

The purse of Clarke’s lips seems enough to answer the question, because before Clarke even opens her mouth, Pike is already rolling his eyes and grumbling to the ceiling. Clarke stops him from swearing his frustration out loud with a wave of her hand.

“Look, there’s still work to do here,” she sighs, tired herself though she has no desire to go back to Arkadia, “Kane has to go back because he’s the Chancellor, and they need him, but there’s still something for you to see.”

“I’ve seen everything, Clarke,” Pike is glaring down at her, “we’ve been here almost a week, and my people from Farm Station need me too.”

Clarke has to bite back a growl that _no they don_ _’t_ and _they need the exact opposite of you_. Perhaps it’s the sleep deprivation, but irritation rises quickly to the surface. “Your people are my people too, Pike,” Clarke says, trying to remain calm enough not to spit through her teeth, “and now they’re also Lexa’s people.”

Anger and irritation flash in Pike’s dark eyes at that statement. “You mean we’re her slaves,” he retorts, “she _branded_ Kane last night. Like he was cattle.” He’s seething. Clarke can see it in the way his shoulders tense and rise, from the white bleeding around the edges of his clenched fists. He’s a bomb waiting to explode, one that is at least as dangerous, perhaps more so, than the bomb Farm Station had narrowly avoided in Mount Weather. “We need to go home, Clarke,” Pike says, voice terse and clipped, “we need to tend to our people. Even if you won’t, I will, and you can’t stop me.”

Clarke studies him for a moment, though her blood is bubbling in her veins and it’s hard to see through the red haze of anger in her brain. Her heart is screaming for her to just kill him, he is far more trouble than he is worth. But it won’t solve her problem. If he dies, Farm Station, and the rest of her far too easily manipulated people, will revolt and declare an idiotic war against the Grounders - and that leads to nothing but trouble and death for Lexa. She has to win him over, and by winning him, his Farm Station as well.

“Lexa has Queen Nia in custody,” Clarke says finally, when the air between them becomes too thick with tension. Kane starts, dark-ringed eyes refocusing on Clarke with a stare intense enough to prickle the hairs on the back of her neck. One of Pike’s eyebrows jumps, but his face remains otherwise impassive. “You want to see justice for Farm Station, Pike?” Clarke continues, confident she has his attention, and Kane’s as well, though he needs to hear this less than Pike. Pike narrows his eyes at her, but doesn’t move and doesn’t speak. “Then you’ll stay.”

Whether it’s true - that Lexa has captured Nia or not - Clarke isn’t certain. It makes her a little uneasy to lie to Pike about this, because it might backfire, badly. But she knows that Lexa is looking for Nia, and she knows Nia is eager to dethrone Lexa, and in Clarke’s _when_ , the one when Lexa dies, it had been immediately after the Sky People were initiated into the Coalition that Nia was brought before the council. The lie is likely to be the truth, and it’s a risk Clarke is willing to take.

Pike holds Clarke’s gaze, his dark, cold eyes never once breaking away from Clarke’s. Then he finally uncoils a little, the smallest amount of tension just falling from his shoulders, his hands just unloosening a little to release his fists. He nods, once. “Fine.”

“Good,” Clarke nods back, careful to keep her expression as neutral and stoic as possible.

Kane takes Pike by the shoulders then, and carefully leads him out, looking for all the world like an old man leading a skittish, wild horse back to its stall. And when they’re finally gone, and the door clicks shut behind them, Clarke releases a heavy breath and with it the exhaustion and worry and fear and frustration she’s been carrying around with her since Lexa died. She turns, runs a hand through her hair, closes her eyes and tries to breathe.

“Clarke.”

The softness of her name on those lips, the stress on the syllables, the warmth and tenderness of that voice - it washes away the cobwebs and the dark things, lets in the light, and Clarke can breathe. She hates it, because it’s become the only thing that sets her free and now she knows how easily it can all be taken away. She knows that she must let it go.

“Am I interrupting something?” Lexa is silent as she slips inside, even in all that armor. Clarke tilts her head to catch a glimpse from the corner of her eye, and sees a flash of red sash and heavy pauldron.

“No,” Clarke sighs after a while. Despite her answer, Lexa allows her a moment anyway. Clarke can feel Lexa watching her, studying her, gauging her. As if trying to decide how much truth is in Clarke’s denial. Or maybe she’s only trying to understand Clarke herself. Clarke wonders what exactly Lexa is thinking. She wonders what Lexa thinks of her.

Silence holds them for a moment. But unlike the silence between Clarke and Pike, this one is comfortable, patient, safe. The air warms where it was cold, the tension crackling in the room is pleasant, rather than confrontational.

“The Council is meeting,” Lexa says finally, “Queen Nia awaits judgment.”

Clarke’s not sure whether to be relieved or worried. It was a prediction too easily made. Too much in this time stream is the same, and what if that means that Clarke can’t change the past, and can’t save Lexa?

_Save her!_

The words are echoed directly into Clarke’s heart, an electric pulse to restart it’s weak, tired pumping. It’s her purpose, and as fruitless as it might seem, she has to try. She continues for nothing else. Clarke turns to face Lexa, who stares at her impassively, expression blank. But Clarke can see past the calm now, can see past the facade. She can see the turmoil in Lexa’s eyes, hear the questions hiding on Lexa’s lips. To an eye untrained, Lexa looks poised and steadfast, but Clarke can see her insecurity in the sudden clasp of Lexa’s hands and the unsure yearning in the slow, gentle bob of Lexa’s throat.

“Pike thinks you’ve enslaved us,” Clarke says tiredly then, and takes a small step closer. She drops her eyes tiredly, but not before catching Lexa’s soft exhale and the pink of her tongue running over her bottom lip. “Because you branded Kane. Farmers used to do that to cows they owned, before the bombs,” Clarke finishes in explanation. Lexa takes a small step closer as well.

“It is our way, Clarke. All of the Coalition’s clan leaders bear my mark,” Lexa’s voice is soft, and another step closer. Clarke wants to close the distance that remains between them, even though she knows she shouldn’t. Loving Lexa won’t save her. In fact, it will kill her. It is weakness, and Clarke has already shown too much of that.

“I know.” Another step closer. Like they’re magnets. Like they can do nothing else.

“What would you have me do?” Lexa’s voice is barely above a whisper. It doesn’t matter, even if the room were full of the screams of the thousands she’s killed, Clarke would still hear Lexa’s voice above it all. And they’re close enough to touch now, Clarke’s skin prickles with the memory of Lexa’s arms around her, the warmth of Lexa’s skin against her lips. But she doesn’t reach across. Because loving Lexa won’t save her, it will kill her, and Clarke has shown too much weakness already.

So instead, she snaps her head up to meet Lexa’s eyes, surprisingly soft and tender for the conversation they’re having, and forces herself to take a step back. “I don’t know,” Clarke shrugs helplessly, “but I can’t let him go back to Arkadia. I can’t trust him not to start a massacre and a war.”

Lexa simply nods. She doesn’t look away from Clarke, and the questions poised at the edge of her lips hang there, unspoken and heavy.

 

* * *

 

Dropping by Clarke’s room to inform her that the Queen of Azgeda had been apprehended had been an excuse, albeit a good one. Lexa tries not to think about the real reason she’d gone to see Wanheda that morning. She tries not to think about the way Clarke had cried in her arms the night before. She tries not to think about the vulnerability in Clarke’s face, the exhaustion rimming Clarke’s eyes, the hopelessness in the slump of Clarke’s shoulders.

But she can’t seem to stop herself from wondering what had happened to Clarke between Mount Weather and now. It’s a mystery Lexa is afraid to solve, even when the signs are clear. And even if she had the time and the freedom to ask the questions she desperately wants answers to, even if she thought Clarke would answer them, Lexa knows there are more pressing, if not more important, matters to attend to.

Maybe someday, she will ask. Maybe someday, Clarke will answer. Maybe. Someday.

But that day is not today, and Lexa has been Heda long enough, has lost enough, to know that Someday might never come.

So she does her best to push those intrusive thoughts to the back of her mind and tries to focus on the issues at hand. The Coalition’s ambassadors sit in their chairs, lined against the walls, and Lexa leans back in hers. They’re all waiting for her to speak. It seems silly to be nervous, but she feels her nerves thrumming, feels restlessness squirm in her gut like worms in the earth.

“Ambassadors of the Coalition, today we honor our covenant.”

The room quiets the instant Lexa speaks, falling into a respectful hush that stills the hum of anxiety crawling under Lexa’s skin. The eyes of the ambassadors are on her, and Titus stands beside her. Ever faithful, ever devoted. “The clan that stands against one of us,” Lexa continues, voice strong so that it carries throughout the room, “stands against us all.”

“Lid fingadon in,” Titus waves beside her for the guards to open the doors. Whispers break out the moment the doors open to reveal Queen Nia, still in warpaint, shackled in heavy chains, a guard on either side of her pushing her in by the elbows. Lexa fights a grim smile, because Nia is scowling, Nia is prisoner, and because, if everything goes to plan, Nia will die by her hand that very day. Finally, Lexa will receive her blood payment for the blood Nia spilled all those years ago. Finally, Costia’s torture and murder will be avenged.

Titus has to raise his voice to be heard above the ambassadors’ agitated whispers as Nia is pushed to her knees only a couple of feet from where Lexa sits on her throne. Behind her, not in chains yet, stands Ontari, observing with ill-concealed fury written across every line of her face. “Queen Nia of Azgeda has confessed to the murder of one-hundred and twenty members of Skaikru, in direct conflict of the peace treaty signed during the war against the Mountain.” Lexa watches Titus carefully when he turns to look at Clarke. She sees the distrust flit in his dark eyes while he regards the ambassador of the Sky People, the distasteful curl of his lip before he opens his mouth again to speak, “Wanheda, what say you?”

Clarke doesn’t turn to glance, even for a moment, at Pike standing behind her, but Lexa sees the surprised satisfaction that crosses his face. She sees the way Pike’s hands clench in front of him, the press of his lips. It isn’t routine to allow ambassadors to bring in guests to a meeting such as this, and he is the only one present, much to the consternation of the rest of the room. But his presence is necessary, and Lexa prays that this spectacle, and the coming fight, will be enough to allay the man’s distrust and prevent a war from breaking out between the Coalition and its newest addition.

“Skaikru demands justice,” Clarke says, voice steely, words precisely enunciated so that no one might mistake them.

Nia’s response is almost immediate. “Azgeda nou badan disha gada op -”

“Shof yu op!” Titus snaps. He hates Nia nearly as much as Lexa, had loved Costia nearly as much as Lexa, even when he’d counseled her against the relationship. “That is not the worst of your crimes. Ambassadors of the Coalition,” Titus turns to look every ambassador in the eye, to make sure he has their undivided attention, “This natrona has concealed a Natblida in her own home, raised and trained to be loyal to one clan and one clan only.” For a moment, Lexa allows pride to fill her chest as her mentor and friend stabs a condemning finger in Ontari’s direction. Ontari scowls and hisses at him. “Ontari of Azgeda, faithful servant of Nia, do you deny this claim?!”

Heads swivel in her direction. Ontari’s expression is twisted into one of contempt. But guards have flanked her already, prepared as they have been by Lexa, to yank out an arm and swipe the edge of their blade across the warrior’s palm. Black blood wells up in its wake.

“Do you have anything to say in your defense?” Bitterness and poison seep through Titus’s tightly controlled words. The Ambassadors explode into a fit of furious whispers and mutterings as it becomes clear that Titus’s accusation holds true.

Finally, Nia turns her attention to Lexa. Her eyes are ice cold, pale like clear blue skies on crisp snow. Lexa meets them squarely, jaw set, expression studiously blank, though her heart is stuttering for the coming words, giddy with furious anticipation.

“I need no defense. _She_ does!” Nia’s eyes flash in defiance, and Lexa struggles not to bare her teeth in a bloodthirsty grin. “Our Heda is weak, her Natblida are weak, and Ontari is the assurance that - should the day come that our Commander is no longer fit to rule - another can quickly take her place.” Nia straightens her back and shoulders where she kneels. Her voice rises in clear defiance over the Ambassador’s furious murmurs. “Today is judgment day. I call for a vote of no confidence!”

The room is silent. But Lexa’s ears roar. Her heart stammers in her chest, because Clarke was right about this. Because she can finally taste the promise of vengeance in her mouth, bitter and cold. Because, by the end, this will turn a potential future doubt on her right to rule into a present affirmation of it. She has to fight not to smile. In the corner of her eye, she can see Clarke’s face pale. Titus paces, seething. Lexa wonders if the rest of the Coalition’s ambassadors will back Nia anyway, despite her betrayal, or if the betrayal will have cemented their fear of her. She hopes it’s the latter. Her blood is hot and her muscles itch for a fight.

“Take this queen to meet her fate,” he says, voice low but no less menacing for its softness.

Excitement races across Lexa’s skin to see Nia’s smile, cold and cruel and cunning, stretch across her face even as the guards step forward to follow Titus’s order. It’s almost a surprise to her when it’s the ambassador of the Floukru to be the first to stand.

“Slou yu rou daun,” he says in his low, rumbly voice, “Nou Heda noumou.”

It’s hard to keep a grin from stretching her lips.

Titus splutters furiously, Clarke’s brows are knit and her face is wan. Pike behind her shifts, every line of his body tense with anger and confusion and aggression.

So as her guards move to collect Nia, Ontari, and her conspirators, Lexa raises her voice. “Hod op!”

The fear in Titus’s voice is plain. “Lexa, please execute these traitors -”

“Let her make her move,” Lexa interrupts with a raised hand. The room is silent. Everyone but Clarke is standing around her, everyone including Clarke looks tense. Lexa can see this from the corners of her vision, but her eyes, and her attention, are focused heavily on the seething, scarred ripa that kneels before her. She can hear the murmurs of the rest of her coalition, still echoing “nou Heda noumou”, and the clank of chains being snapped around Ontari’s wrists and ankles.

When Pike asks, voice tense, “Commander, what is this?”, Lexa almost smiles again.

“This is a coup.”

“This is the law!” Nia’s chains rattle as she rises, “her law. A unanimous vote of the ambassadors - or death - are all that can remove a commander from power.”

Lexa’s skin thrums with anticipation. It’s a thrill to hear Clarke hiss in denial, “It’s _not_ unanimous,” for more reasons than Lexa has the focus to name. Mutters about Ontari, about another Natblida Lexa should have faced during her Conclave, race in ripples around the room.

Finally. Lexa has been waiting for this for too long. She has been more patient than she believed she could be for this perfect opportunity. Her blood sings with the fury she’s had to deny with every moment spent in this viper’s presence, with every poisonous breath she’s had to share with this roach. She can’t wait any longer. She doesn’t have to wait much longer.

“She won’t take our heads because she knows our armies will retaliate,” the challenge in Nia’s eyes draws Lexa back to the present. “None of us here wants war!” The queen shouts as she turns slowly to face her supporters, and Lexa is done waiting.

“We both know what you want, Nia.” Lexa stands up to stalk over to her prisoner, “If you think me unfit to command, issue the challenge and let’s get on with it.” She can almost see Nia’s blood staining her thin, pale lips. She can almost see the shock of death arch in the ugly scars she wears like trophies across her face.

“Very well,” Nia murmurs, breath ghosting across Lexa’s face, “you are challenged.”

The impulse to cry out her victory, to scream for blood, is almost too powerful to resist. It’s almost too much to hold back a smile. “And I accept your challenge.”

Over the murmurs, Titus’s deep voice resounds, “So be it. Soulou gonplei. Warrior against warrior, to the death. Queen Nia of Azgeda, your champion is, by default, Ontari. Her life, or death, will determine your sentence.”

Nia is smirking, white teeth flashing in her pale face. Too much confidence shines in her pale eyes. Her plans to plant her own puppet in the seat of Commander have been mangled, but she clearly believes they are not shattered yet. But Lexa is unruffled. She can hear the previous Commanders, can hear her own heart, cry for battle, cry for victory. Finally, she will take Nia’s head. Finally, she will have blood for Costia’s life. Finally, her interests regarding the Azplana line up with the interests of the Coalition, and especially the interests of its newest clan.

When Titus asks in a whisper if she will claim a Champion to fight on her behalf, Lexa cannot help but glance at Clarke. There is sheer panic glittering in her eyes.

Lexa turns away, settles in her rightful throne.

“Ai laik Heda,” she says, and though her voice is soft, it carries across the room. “Non na throu daun gon ai.”

  

* * *

 

Clarke doesn’t rise from her chair until the room has cleared. Pike doesn’t wait for her, he stalks off in a storm, likely to his room. But in Polis, unarmed and without a following, he is toothless and Clarke is not concerned. She waits until even an angrily muttering Titus steps out, until it’s just her and Lexa, standing behind her throne, looking out over the balcony at the people on the street. Living their lives. Like the most important hours of the world are not unraveling before them. Fury and fear flood through her in turns while she sits, unsure what to do, how to react.

“You’re worried.”

Clarke sits up at the sound of Lexa’s voice. “You should have told me,” she says sharply. She’s not successful in hiding either the anger or the tension in her tone.

“I will not lose, Clarke,” every word is soft, gentle, a stark contrast to the steel Lexa had worn in her words only minutes before. Her posture is relaxed now, in a way it had not been then. “You said it yourself, this is a battle I survive.” There’s an easy confidence in the lilt of Lexa’s voice, and a note of dark anticipation that unnerves Clarke.

“Last time you fought Roan, not Ontari,” Clarke snaps, and rises to join Lexa at the parted sheer drapes. They’re cracked open to let the sunlight in, and warmth creeps through to sink into Clarke’s chilled skin. “What’s to say you’ll survive against _her_?”

Lexa turns her head to look at her. There’s a small smile curled at the corner of her lips, secret and lovely. “Me,” she murmurs, pauses, “and you.”

It’s not a question.

“Ontari is a threat we cannot ignore,” Lexa continues, when Clarke stays silent. In the sunlight, her eyes glitter green, impossible to read for anyone but Clarke. “By calling her out now, we solidify Nia’s status as a traitor.”

Clarke grits her teeth, fists clenched together beside her. Lexa is too confident, and Clarke is afraid that she’s doomed Lexa to death again by telling her too much too soon. “Only _if_ you beat Ontari.”

“I will.” Lexa looks away, over the balcony railing, at the people below in the streets continuing about their lives around the guards that escort Ontari in chains to what will be that evening’s battleground. Steel weaves into Lexa’s stance, her mouth sets in solid determination. In that moment, in that assuredness and strength, she is every inch the Commander of the Coalition.

When Clarke mutters “You’d better” under her breath, Lexa tilts her head to look at her. Light glitters in her green and gold-flecked eyes, like Clarke has somehow given her an answer of some kind to a question Clarke hadn’t known she was asking.

 

Pike is waiting for her in her room when she finally leaves Lexa at the balcony. He’s livid, pacing from corner to corner like a caged animal. Clarke will not try to explain to him now why she wanted him to stay. He won’t hear her like this. All he’ll hear is the cocky condescension in Nia’s voice, all he’ll see is the cold glimmer of her eyes. Outside the window beyond him, the sun has reached its zenith. It will be hours yet before the fight. And Clarke knows better now than to waste her time trying to manipulate the outcome of the battle. Too many eyes will be watching now, and a battle won dirty will condemn Lexa before she ever sets foot on that battlefield.

Clarke could have survived a fight between Lexa and Roan. The outcome would have been predictable enough, Clarke could have been confident enough to face it. But against Ontari? She is too unknown an entity and Clarke has no precedence for how this battle will turn out. It makes her feel sick. Helpless. But Lexa is right - challenging Ontari is the smartest move. _If_ Lexa wins, she’ll take out two enemies in one stroke.

_If_.

Clarke wonders if she can get away from Pike long enough to throw up.

“What the hell happened in there?” Pike sounds calmer now as he moves to stand in front of Clarke. His face is still thunderous, lips still pressed into a badly concealed snarl, and he still radiates aggression. But he stills and waits for an explanation quietly, and perhaps an explanation will ease the nerves churning in Clarke’s gut and distract her from her fear.

Clarke sighs heavily and waves for him to sit down, collecting her thoughts as he does. She can’t sound as afraid as she feels. He’s not Lexa. He will not forgive it, he will not forget it, and he will not understand.

“Politics among the Grounder clans are intricate and complex,” she says slowly, “Lexa is the Commander of the whole Coalition, but each of the twelve clans - thirteen now - has a leader of its own. Queen Nia is the monarch of the Ice Nation, the clan whose territory your people landed in.” Clarke knows he’s probably heard this before, from Kane or her mother or Bellamy, most likely. But the more he hears it, the better he understands it.

Pike stares at her over his joined fists. His elbows are balanced on his knees, his brows are pinched together in agitation and focus.

“But they can dethrone her, as easy as that?” Pike asks after a while. Clarke doesn’t like the tone of his voice, he sounds too much like he’s planning something.

“I wouldn’t say it’s easy,” Clarke frowns, “and if it’s something you’re considering, don’t. Lexa is our best ally.” She pauses for a moment, considers Pike seated across from her. His face is mostly unreadable, hidden as it is behind his hands. “I know it didn’t look like it in there, but the Ice Nation is one of the least liked and least trusted of the Coalition,” Clarke continues, speaking slowly and deliberately to punctuate the importance of her words, “Nia has a reputation for blackmail, torture and manipulation. She doesn’t like anyone having more power than her, and she doesn’t like the Sky People.”

“And the black blood?”

Clarke sighs. She’s not sure how to explain this to him. She’s not sure she wants to. “Commanders are not chosen in what we’d call a traditional sense,” she tells him, finally, because his stare is burning a hole in her forehead and feigning ignorance, or refusing to explain, will likely have worse consequences than being honest. “Sometimes, children here are born with black blood - a genetic mutation after the bombs, probably. They’re called Natblidas. It marks them as potential candidates as Commanders. Law decrees that any child discovered with this mutation is brought to Polis, to be trained under the present Commander for leadership. When the Commander dies…” Clarke sighs, trails off, but Pike is staring at her intently, impatient for her to finish. “The surviving Natblida becomes the new Commander.”

Even with his hands in the way, Clarke knows Pike’s mouth is twisted and pursed into disturbed understanding. “That’s barbaric.”

“It’s their way.” How can she possibly explain to him what she knows about the Commander’s Spirit? How can she possibly explain to him that their black blood is exactly what makes it possible for them to accept the chip into their system without rejection? How can she even begin to call him a hypocrite, for what he has not, and will not do, this time around? “Nia hid one, Ontari. It’s treason. Lexa will have to prove herself against Ontari, and by doing that, confirm Nia as a traitor.”

“The punishment for which is death?”

Clarke nods, slowly. “Yes.”

For a while, Pike is silent.

“Then the Commander must win,” Pike murmurs. He’s not staring at Clarke anymore, rather at an invisible spot far away over Clarke’s head. It makes Clarke uneasy, because she knows his penchant for immediate and unprovoked violence toward a possible threat.

So she doesn’t say anything. Not yet. Right now, this is the closest she can get to counting Pike as a potential ally. And even if Pike’s thought process has nothing to do with considering the grounders as friends and everything to do with exacting revenge disguised as justice, at least it’s a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! n_n" I'm sorry I've been gone so long please don't hate me!
> 
> So, for those of you still reading, here's the deal:  
> Yes, I'm still planning on finishing this story. I have pages upon pages of notes for it, I'm not going to quit on you. No, I haven't finished the book that I started during NaNoWriMo last November, it's still in the works (working on a second write-through, though I never finished the first). I'll be working on both of these projects at the same time until one/both are done.
> 
> Now, what happens next is a little bit up to you. I can take another long hiatus to finish the whole story and then start posting chapters on a regular bi-weekly schedule. I don't know how long that will take - I may be moving as soon as April or as late as August and have a lot on my plate. OR. I can continue as I have been, posting chapters as I finish them, without promises for how long it will be before I update again.
> 
> As a small tidbit of information while you think about this: I will be doing Camp NaNo in April and June, and this story will be a focus project at least for April regardless of which option is picked. I will be freer to work in June than April, and it's likely that if I don't finish this story in April's camp, I will try to finish it during June's camp at the latest.
> 
> Another possibility if I wind up finishing the whole story first and posting on a schedule - I might choose to take the whole story down to rework previous chapters to fit the story as a whole a little better, so there will be a period of time when this whole project disappears from the interwebs.
> 
> Let me know in the comments below. Thank you guys for sticking with me. You're all amazing. Thank you for the wonderfully sweet comments you've been leaving this whole time too - I read them, even if I haven't replied to them, and I cherish them deeply.
> 
> This chapter is unbeta-ed. Any and all mistakes are (whoops!) my own.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of you voted I post chapters as I finish them, so here you go: unbeta-ed and hot off the presses. Any and all mistakes are mine. Thank you all so much for your comments, your kudos, and your support. I wouldn't be much of anywhere without them.

“Chit bilaik thri bakon kom Heda?”

Lexa is relaxed. She’s leaning back against her throne, legs crossed, and it’s the only time she can ever sit in this huge chair and feel comfortable in it. Her Natblidas are ranged around her in various positions, looking equally relaxed but engaged. They love her. Lexa can see it in the depths of their eyes, can feel it in the echoes of love and respect she’d had for the Heda before her. They are her children, she is their mother, their teacher, their mentor, their guardian. And in their presence, the stresses of the day can be forgotten and shed.

“Noun,” Hekal, one of Lexa’s youngest, offers immediate answer to her question. Her voice is soft, but it carries, even over the sound of the throne room’s double doors creaking as they swing open.

“Fiyenes,” Oron picks up after her, Lexa doesn’t look up to see who’s coming in, her attention is focused on the ducklings ranged around her. She looks instead at Aden, her strongest, quickest, smartest, to finish the answer. He obliges with a nod. “En uf.”

She’s proud of them. Her children. They don’t turn to the distraction behind them. Just as her attention remains fixed on them, their attention is fixed on her. They’re all strong, smart, kind. And Lexa can’t bear to think what will happen to them when she dies and the Conclave begins, because the Conclave only ever ends in death, and what endless love lives in their hearts will be hardened and tucked away into forgotten places, or else will die with them before a new commander is picked.

This is the way of things. Whether Lexa likes it or not.

“Lev yo op meja and mema yo in,” Lexa knows she has to finish her lesson now, the soft murmurs of her visitors are the harsh reminder of the day’s still coming tasks, and it is better that her Natblidas start their next lesson before she starts her battle. She doesn’t want them to have to watch her fight, she doesn’t want them to have to watch her die if that is to be her fate. “Yo gada yo rein in kom yo Sheidjus.”

Lexa can see how Titus’s sudden, loud claps startle the children from their focus, but they don’t jump.

“Natblida!” His voice is hard, a stark difference from the softer tones of their now completed lesson, “Mafta op.” Lexa’s boys and girls rise at his summons, their weapons quiet in their hands, and line up one behind the other. As Titus leads them out, Lexa finally looks up to see Clarke and Pike at the door, standing to the side to allow the dozen children their exit.

Clarke looks nervous. Lexa has to bury her own fear in the pit of her stomach. She _won_ _’t_ die today. She won’t leave the woman she loves behind.

“Aden,” Lexa stands from her throne as she calls out, Aden freezes in his steps and turns to face her. “Stay.” The door shuts loudly, and Pike is frowning at both Lexa and Aden, a giant among them. She knows what he’s here for, even if he doesn’t know it himself. She knows why Clarke brought him, the weak link, the personification of all the doubt and fear and aggression of the Skaikru. Clarke nods at him to follow as they congregate together in the middle of the room.

“Clarke, Pike, this is Aden.”

Aden tilts his head to glance briefly at their visitors. Nothing flickers across his face, and Lexa is so proud of him, chin held high and every line of his body still and strong and controlled like he is already Commander here. She can’t help the smile that lifts the corner of her mouth even as she looks at Pike’s confused frown. “Aden is the most promising of my novitiates,” Lexa continues, “If I should die today, he will likely succeed me. Clarke and Pike worry about our people,” she says, turning now to address Aden. “Tell them what will happen to them when you become Heda.”

Aden swallows. She knows he doesn’t like it when she refers to his ascension as an inevitability. Thinking about it makes him anxious, for her death and for the deaths of his brothers and sisters. And, for all his pride and confidence, Aden is not one to discount any possibilities. He is so much like her.

“ _If_ I become Heda,” his stress on the word ‘if’ does not escape Lexa, or Pike and Clarke, by the looks on their faces, “I pledge my loyalty to the Thirteenth Clan.”

It’s not much of an assurance. But it’s better than nothing. And even baby steps like this one will chip away at the doubt apparent on Pike’s features. For now, it will have to be enough. And they will have time to bring Pike around because Lexa will not leave the woman she loves behind. Not today.

“Thank you, Aden. Now go join the others.”

Aden bows and steps away, back behind Clarke and Pike. His footsteps are light and quick as he makes his escape. And as the door clicks shut behind him, Lexa looks up at Pike to see him staring worriedly after Aden. “See? Nothing to worry about.” She’s not sure whether she’s addressing Pike, still staring after Aden, or Clarke, who’s watching her nervously.

Pike snorts. “Oh yeah, nothing to worry about but that the safety of our people lies in the hands of children,” Pike’s voice is hard when he answers, acidic, and the doubt that creased his face is still there even as he turns to look back at her. Lexa meets his gaze head on and does not waver.

“Then you worry for nothing.”

“What makes you so sure you’re going to beat this Ontari girl?” Pike demands, bristling at the casual tone of Lexa’s voice. It makes her stiffen, hackles raised at the challenge in his tone, but Lexa refuses to rise to the bait. Clarke is watching her intently, brows knit, lips pressed together, silent and tense. For Clarke’s sake, if not for her own, Lexa must stay calm.

“You have never seen me fight.”

“That’s not an answer,” Pike hisses, and Lexa’s lip begins to curl upward in a snarl.

But one of Clarke’s hands rises over Pike’s chest, whether to calm him or to push him back, Lexa’s not sure. But it stills him for a moment. “I have,” she says, voice soft and more certain than Lexa was expecting.

“And Ontari?” There is still doubt in Pike’s voice.

Silence. Lexa is looking at Clarke now too, because Clarke never mentioned ever seeing Ontari fight but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t.

Still, Clarke’s silence says more than words, and Pike makes a rude noise in the back of his throat before turning agitatedly away.

“If you would like to watch, I can have a guard escort you to a place of honor at the front of the ring,” Lexa says, carefully folding her own irritation with him out of her tone. It does no good to answer doubt with aggression, not here, not now, not with him. She watches coolly while Pike turns and regards her carefully with a suspicious glint in his eyes.

Then he gives her a slow nod, and a deeply rumbled “Sure.” She can hear him whisper furiously with Clarke as she steps past them to the guards posted just outside the throne room. And though her warriors give her a strange look for her request, they’re quick to comply and finally, finally, she and Clarke are alone again.

For a while, neither of them says anything. Lexa stands with her feet shoulder-length apart, her hands behind her back, at ease. Clarke shifts anxiously from foot to foot, eyes never landing on anything for too long. The silence between them stretches, and Lexa wishes she could know what goes on behind those blue, blue eyes.

Then Lexa smiles and steps a little closer, hands falling to her sides comfortably as she moves. “You’re worried about me.” She’s teasing, and maybe it’s not such a good idea judging from the sharp look Clarke gives her. But she thinks maybe there’s a flash of affection hidden behind her Sky Girl’s scowl.

“I’m worried about my people,” Clarke replies, tone as sharp as her expression. But she takes a step closer too and sucks in a breath before dropping her head between her hands and scraping her fingers through her hair.

“I told you,” Lexa murmurs, moving just a little closer, “you worry for nothing.” They’re close enough to touch now, and Lexa reaches out to gently pry Clarke’s hands from her hair.

But Clarke jerks away, head shaking as if to clear away her dark thoughts, or her fears, or something else. It’s deeply disappointing, and Lexa has to school her expression into calm disregard all over again. 

“I worry for everything,” Clarke says, voice low but harsh and thick. Muscle jumps under skin along her jaw, and Lexa aches to reach across again, to smooth her fingers over Clarke’s cheek, to soothe her. But Clarke keeps moving away, walking backward toward the door, further and further out of reach. “If it had been Roan -,” she hesitates, as if to check herself, then plows on, “if it had been Roan, I’d know. I’d be more certain. But I don’t, so…”

She’s reached the door. Lexa turns to watch her, heart sinking for a moment as Clarke’s hands clasp the handle, fingers white with pressure.

Then Clarke takes a deep breath and her chin dips in defeat. “Just don’t die.”

And then she’s gone.

Lexa watches as the door swings shut after her.

But Lexa is learning how to read the truth in Clarke’s eyes. And the truth is screaming, loud and clear, across the immeasurable distance between them. 

 

By the time Lexa makes it out to the ring in her battle armor, Clarke is already seated with the other ambassadors. Even from a distance, Lexa can see that her expression is hard and impassive and her posture is regal. She looks far too familiar, and Lexa is torn between feeling proud, and feeling worried. She can hear the sound of drums in the crowd, can hear them call to her, can hear the sounds of people murmuring. The sun is hot on her skin, hot on the dark leather armor she wears, and there is no breeze to cool her down.

Beside her, Ontari is still and silent.

And then Titus, standing in front of the dais, stands and raises his arms, and the crowd falls silent.

“Hashta soulou gonplei, bilaik won hedon nou mou. Du souda wan op deyon!”

Shouts rise from the crowd. Most of them in support of Heda. A few in support of the Ice Nation. Lexa pushes it into the back of her mind, because the coming battle itches under her skin and because behind Titus, Clarke looks so serious.

Lexa wonders what she looks like when she laughs.

“Yo na jomp in.”

No time to imagine it. Titus collapses back into his seat. Aden, escaped from his afternoon lessons and at the front of the ring not far from where Pike stands, watches stoically, though Lexa can see his worry in the hard set of his jaw. Ontari is already drawing her sword, the ring of steel against scabbard eggs the crowd on into wilder screams and shouts that Lexa can no longer pick apart into words.

Her shoulder guard comes off, the edges of the red sash turn yellow with the dust of the arena, and her own weapon is presented. Clarke is watching her. Lexa can feel her eyes follow her every movement. She thinks Clarke loves her. She knows Clarke believes now that love is weakness.

And as Lexa yanks her sword from its scabbard and twirls it to refamiliarize herself with its weight, she reflects that Clarke is probably right. It’s something Lexa believes too. But she’s learning not to care.

She can feel Ontari’s feet pound the earth before shouts from the crowd alert her to Ontari’s charge and twists to meet it, sword raised to catch the blow, wrists loose to flick a light riposte across Ontari’s back as she passes. The fight has begun in earnest, and Lexa knows she has to focus, or Clarke will be right, love will be weakness, and the fact that Lexa doesn’t care won’t matter.

They are similar heights, similar weights, she and Ontari. And Lexa has never seen Ontari fight before, can’t know her style, her strengths, her weaknesses. So Lexa doesn’t circle, doesn’t wait. She charges in with a few hard blows herself, testing Ontari’s reflexes, her speed, her aggression and stamina. Ontari backs up, but there’s a grin at the corner of her mouth and her footwork is impeccable. Every blow is met and deflected easily, with no useless showmanship or unnecessary flair. A utilitarian swordsman, and supremely confident of her skill.

Their swords cross between their faces, and Ontari digs her heel in the dirt. The grin at the corner of her mouth twitches upward into a brief, manic smile. She clasps her free hand around the blade of Lexa’s sword, and squeezes.

The force of the crowd’s collective scream nearly bowls Lexa over. Shock jars the still air around them, because the blood that drips down Ontari’s wrist is not red, and the truth that was revealed in the throne room hours ago has not had time to circulate yet. Ontari’s grin widens. She has made a statement to the crowd. That she will be the new Heda. But Lexa will not allow it.

Ontari’s strength outmatches hers. Lexa can feel herself being pushed down into the dirt, but she will not kneel for her usurper. She is still Heda, and she places her hand beside Ontari’s, so the edges of their palms touch. The bite of warm steel into her palm sends jolts of electricity down her arm, but the roar of the crowd gives her strength and she uses Ontari’s brief moment of faltering irritation against her to shove both blades back into Ontari’s face and force her off.

And then everything drops away.

Ontari is a blizzard to Lexa’s tornado, wild and reckless and forceful. She does not stop, does not slow, does not catch her breath or lose it. She blots out the sun in the sky, twists the sword from Lexa’s hand and knocks her to her knees, and even as Lexa rises again she does not stop. Even when she has lost her blade to Lexa, she does not stop, and a javelin in her hands only makes her wilder and more dangerous. There is a deathly cold in her eyes and a fierce fluidity in every movement, and Lexa twists and spins and turns but Ontari never falters, never backs down, never slows. She has twice the reach with her javelin, and she’s not even panting as she knocks both swords from Lexa’s grip to leave her vulnerable and open.

And then Lexa’s on her back. The blue sky is dizzying over her. The sun feels cold on her skin, cold on the dark leather armor she wears, and the air feels thin. The sound of the crowd around them comes rushing in, howling and wild and freezing. The glint of frost catches her eye.

Ontari’s face swims into view, cold and distant. There is contempt in her face. She raises an empty fist, and blots of black heat drip onto Lexa’s face, scalding her skin and blinding her.

_Love is weakness_. _For those with black blood, it will always be so._ Titus will never get the chance to tell her ‘I told you so’.

She fists away the black staining her vision, and the glimmer of frost darts across it again. _Death is not the end._ She will live on in the next commander, be it Aden or anyone else. Just as the past commanders live on in her. _Death is not the end._

There’s frost on her throat. It sears against her flesh. A high trilling sound in her ears, the voices of the commanders over the white storm. _Death is not the end_ _…_ but there is something else.

Clarke’s arms around her. Clarke’s tears warming her throat. Clarke’s breath, hot and hard and coming in fits and bursts. Clarke’s blue eyes, swimming with fear, with pain, with gratitude, with love. _Just don_ _’t die._ That simple. _Just don_ _’t die._

The air hisses beside her ear as Lexa twists out of the javelin’s way. _Just don_ _’t die._ She picks her feet up, twists back, feels her heel connect with the back of Ontari’s knee and the earth shudders. But Lexa is leaping out of the way, because Ontari is quick and relentless and already on her feet again with her javelin in hand, furious for being denied the pleasure of killing her. _Just don_ _’t die._ Lexa dances out of the way even as the slices and slashes keep coming. Strength is ballooning in her chest, because she hasn’t seen Clarke laugh yet and she will be damned if she dies without having seen it. She will be damned if she dies when Clarke has expressly forbidden her from it.

Ontari dives, and Lexa slides out of her javelin’s way, and it’s the perfect opportunity to yank the weapon from her enemy’s hands and turn it against her.

Clarke will laugh. Lexa will see it. Ripples of concussive force break across Lexa’s arm as she drives the end of her javelin up under Ontari’s jaw and knocks her flat on her back. Life crackles under every inch of Lexa’s skin as she advances over her prone enemy’s body. Ontari looks up at her, but Lexa does not hesitate, does not make a show of it. Black blood fountains up from the throbbing pulse at Ontari’s neck, and her eyes, once dancing with cruel mirth, are now empty.

There is nothing but a trilling ring. She can see her people around her, screaming her victory, but all she can hear is that high pitch singing in her ears and the sound of Clarke’s voice, cracked and quiet. _Just don_ _’t die._

She looks up to find her Sky Girl. Her soft lips are parted, brows knit, cheeks pale. Lexa cannot wait to make her laugh instead.

But there’s movement. Nia has risen, pale skin and black furs too strong a contrast to escape Lexa’s notice. No one else is looking, no one else sees her, but Lexa will not let her get away this time. And Ontari is not the only warrior here that is skilled with a javelin.

“Jus drein, jus daun,” Lexa can hear her own voice in her ears even as she lifts the weapon and winds it back.

So Clarke probably won’t be laughing today. But the stage for peace is being set and the enemy’s queen is spluttering blood across her chin, collapsed across the floor beside the dais’s stairs. Vengeance for Costia, vengeance for Clarke’s people, vengeance for the Ice Queen’s coup. Jus drein, jus daun. Because love… is not weakness. This love is strength.

“The Queen is dead!” Her voice echoes across the whole square. She’s not sure if she’s still unable to hear the crowd’s screams, or if the screams themselves have been silenced by shock. “Long live the King!” But then there’s cheering. When she glances at him, Aden looks relieved, mouth parted like Clarke’s, chest heaving with the breaths he’d forgotten to take. And Clarke…

Clarke’s throat bobs. Her shoulders shake once, in a vague mockery of a laugh. There is so much relief in her face it’s impossible for Lexa not to believe that Clarke loves her. Strength surges through Lexa again, and it’s hard not to grin. Victory rushes through her blood but the warmth in her stomach is nothing short of a miracle. Clarke loves her. It’s written on every line of her face. And nothing has ever made Lexa feel so alive.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Too close. Too similar. Too rote, too word for word. Clarke stares out her window, trying not to replay the fight between Lexa and Ontari, Lexa and Roan, over and over again in her head.

Maybe some things are written in stone. The fight had been, for the most part, step for step, inch for inch, cut for cut. But at least this time, not only is the Ice Queen dead and some measure of stability brought back to the throne and to the alliance, but another threat has been removed. Ontari is dead. And Clarke wonders if it will make a bigger difference for the people to see Lexa not only assert her right to the Commander’s Spirit, but to see her do it over another Natblida’s dead body. She wonders if it will matter at all.

Too much is the same. And what if Clarke can’t change enough in time to keep the woman she loves alive?

There’s a knock. Clarke had been expecting it, because too much is the same. She knows who it is before she pads across the cool stone floor and opens the door. Lexa is on the other side, her hand badly bandaged and an _almost_ smile at the corners of her lips and her eyes more vulnerable than anyone else living has ever seen. She’s barefoot and beautiful in her nightgown, hair loose around her shoulders and smelling of the sharp, clean soap she uses. It cuts across Clarke’s lungs, but she refuses to allow any more weakness show on her face.

Clarke doesn’t want to follow the script. She’s too tired of everything being the same. But she doesn’t have it in her to turn Lexa away.

Wordlessly, she gestures for Lexa to come in and takes her wounded hand immediately as Lexa steps inside.

“I’ll bandage this for you. Sit down.”

A smile flickers across Lexa’s face, and Clarke almost regrets that little touch. But Lexa’s hand is warm and her smile is too precious to ever truly regret. Clarke turns away quickly to keep from staring at it too long, because Lexa knows too much already and Clarke is afraid that comfort, that knowledge, that love, will kill her. By the time she turns around again, bowl of soap and water in one hand and a clean shirt in the other, Lexa is already sitting on the edge of a chair, both hands folded on her knees in too perfect an image of the past, and Clarke has to suppress a shudder of fear.

She doesn’t know what to say as she approaches Lexa and sits beside her.

“Thank you, for backing me,” Lexa murmurs into the silence that stretches between them. Clarke looks up at her even as she takes Lexa’s offered hand. Her heart is thrumming in her chest, from the warmth of Lexa’s skin against hers, from the familiarity of those words and what they might eventually herald.

“I was just doing what was right for my people,” Clarke replies, but she can’t keep the slight crack out of her voice. She hopes Lexa doesn’t notice. She hopes Lexa still doubts how Clarke feels about her.

But Lexa smiles, and it breaks Clarke’s heart. “Is it your people, then, that said to me ‘just don’t die’?”

The fear is almost too thick for Clarke to swallow. She ducks her head, focuses on wiping dried blood from the creases along Lexa’s palm, gently, because though she can’t bear to see Lexa smile, she can bear even less to know that she’s not. Tension buzzes under Clarke’s skin. Everything aches. The words rip out of her before she can stop them, choked and tight, but still coherent.

“Do you ever talk about anything other than your death?”

Silence. Clarke glances up to see if Lexa is still smiling, like she had been. But the teasing is done and Lexa is staring at her, thoughtful, serious, intense. And Clarke regrets missing it while she still had the chance to see it.

Lexa’s palm is clean. The cut is deep but smooth, with no ragged edges or pockets for dirt to get trapped and turn into infection. Lexa holds completely still while Clarke rips a strip from her shirt, and the weight of her hand on Clarke’s thigh is heavy, but not unwelcome. Lexa’s fingers close around Clarke’s wrist as the bandage is secured.

“Clarke.”

Her stomach bottoms out. The sound of her name on those lips is enough to drop a stone in her chest, enough to stop her heart beating, enough to strip the barbed wire fence she’s built around it and leave her completely and utterly naked. Lexa’s fingertips drift over Clarke’s hand, slip in the spaces between her own fingers and Clarke wishes she could forget how much she loves the feeling of Lexa’s hand entwined with hers. She’s just as grateful that she can’t.

“I will not die.” Lexa is so much closer now, Clarke can feel her breath ghost across her cheek. But she won’t open her eyes to see Lexa inching over. There’s the barest touch that flutters across her cheek, over her hair, hesitant, as if still just asking for permission. Lexa’s palm is warm clasped against hers. Lexa’s body, alive and real and solid beside her, is home. All of it is almost enough to convince her.

But love is weakness. And Lexa cannot afford it.

So Clarke forces herself to shake her head and forces herself to her feet, forces herself to pull her hand out of the haven of Lexa’s and pulls away.

“Reshop, Heda.”

Impersonal. Distant. Professional.

Lexa is not smiling. There’s disappointment in her quiet eyes. It’s easier to swallow than the pain of losing her, and Clarke stands her ground until Lexa stands with her.

“Goodnight, Ambassador,” she says. Impersonal. Distant. Professional.

She turns once on her way out the door, the green of her eyes shadowed by the darkness, the sad disappointment in them showing through regardless. Clarke waits until she slips out and the door clicks shut after her before collapsing into the seat she’d just vacated. It’s still warm. And Clarke curls into it to stave off the terror probing into the edges of her mind.

Too much is the same.

When Clarke sleeps that night, she dreams of black blood. Of glowing green eyes clouded over with pain. Of trembling lips stained dark and too hot, and a voice, whispered and broken and beloved, telling her that she’s right. That life is about more than just survival. She dreams of that same voice, strong and alive, reminding her that love is weakness.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Flynn The Hurricane, AKA 'The Devil Incarnate', for staying up with me last night and going through the chapter with me passage by passage.
> 
> I'm sorry to say I won't have a set schedule for posting this time, guys. Chapters will come as I get through them, and Flynn and I have time to edit them. All I can promise is the happy ending we deserved.
> 
> Tags and characters will be added as we go along, and the rating will definitely go up as well.


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